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RE: God on Trial - 11/15/2008 7:15:32 AM   
cpK69


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It was a very touching show. I cried at the end, and am still contemplating the ramifications of the situation.

The aspects of the story you mentioned where heart-wrenching, but the one that impressed upon me most, was that of the younger, dark-haired man who had been insistent God should be found guilty, only to later find out he was on the list to go. I can’t imagine living my last few moments with that on my mind.

As far as faith being hardwired; it is hard for me to say where mine came from exactly. I had little instruction in religion when I was young, and nothing formal, until I opted to attend church with my maternal grandparents.

My belief that there is “something more” came from an experience I had long before I attended church regularly. As for my faith in a creator, that probably started at a young age; when I stopped having faith in the people in my immediate surroundings.

Kim


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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 1:12:09 AM   
hlen5


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Kim,

Thank you for your reply. I can't imagine keeping one's faith in the face of such insanity that the Holocaust was.

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 3:02:06 AM   
cpK69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: hlen5

Kim,

Thank you for your reply. I can't imagine keeping one's faith in the face of such insanity that the Holocaust was.


You’re welcome.
 
I can relate to what you are saying in a sense. As a teen, my faith was that God hated me, only I was convinced it was because of something I had done. I wasn’t sure what that was, but was positive it must have been me. I don’t suppose that is much better then blaming God, as it showed a lack of understanding.
 
At this point in my life, the basis of my faith is the simple logic, if it takes a great artist to make a master piece; a great chef to prepare an exquisite meal; and a great architect to design the finest buildings, there must be a God. From there, I've tried to build up by attempting to discern as many absolute truths as I can.
 
I am inclined to believe I would most likely resolve to accept it, faced with a similar situation in my present understanding; like the younger man I referenced earlier did, at the end. Only, I would have be asking God for guidance and strength while I was waiting, instead of blaming.
 
Thank you for the interesting topic.
 
Kim

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 6:09:21 AM   
RealityLicks


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God On Trial was shown here back in September and I thought it one of the better TV dramas I have seen in the last few years.  I didn't see much value in the present day scenes, set during a tour of Auschwitz, but the main body of the play was great.  It's interesting to compare US and UK drama because the American variety tends to be written in teams, whilst British stuff - like this - leans more toward the sole author's voice and I've enjoyed this writer's work for quite a while.

Incidentally, a US state senator has started a lawsuit against God, injucting Him to  "cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats".  On being told no-one had His home address at which to serve papers, the senator responded that God's omniscience meant that he had had proper notice of the proceedings.  The senator is a black politician making a civil liberties point by the prosecution. 

God has not yet responded to the suit but the US Constitution has been amended, preventing His plaintiff serving as a senator any longer.  Coincidence or divine will?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7673591.stm

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 7:25:00 AM   
hardbodysub


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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

...

- after all, if no Jewish God then no Christianity ...




No Jewish God, then no Christian or Muslim God either. It's the same one for all three religions.

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 8:04:31 AM   
MrRodgers


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quote:

ORIGINAL: SL4V3M4YB3

Can a bee keeper protect every single bee from harm?
Does a bee keeper care about the actions or inaction of every single bee?
A bee keeper only cares about the product.
Think of God as a bee keeper and then ask yourself what the product is?

Many models of God exist this is just one, God man be a Sheep farmer.

Wrong analogy. Bees and in most all animal life below the human mind...acts upon instinct only. They are out for survival while most animals are not even aware of their own existence.

We brilliant humans however, can act outside of instinct and willfully do so. This allowed many humans over history to commit some of the most excreable sins and all in the name of those Gods who tell us we are all what ? Sinners.

This 'trial' is entirely a fantasy. God didn't create man...man created god.

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 10:02:14 AM   
LadyEllen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: hardbodysub


quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

...

- after all, if no Jewish God then no Christianity ...




No Jewish God, then no Christian or Muslim God either. It's the same one for all three religions.


Yes. But the point is that the holocaust only occurred as the culmination of centuries of Church teachings that the Jews killed Jesus because of their refusal to recognise him as the Messiah and thence that the Jews were no longer the chosen people and in fact were subhuman at best, evil at worst.

Without that revolutionary idea of the Jews, that there is one God only, and thus only one way, none of this would have happened. With pluralistic interpretations of the divine, there is room to be and to do with validity a whole range of ways. Disagreements, confrontations and violence over "one true way" are unlikely to occur in such scenarios, where it is understood that there is no one true way.

That this approach produces problems can be seen in the history of the Jewish people recounted in the Bible - the leading civilisations of the Middle East  and later Rome for centuries saw the Jewish people as a problem in themselves because of their one God, and persecuted and suppressed them and their idea as far as they were able, recognising the danger of the idea.

When the idea is then spread across the ancient world by way of a new religion called Christianity, the seeds are sown for a future characterised by violence as the means to settle what is the one true way. Add into that the factors described about the Jews receiving the blame for the execution of Jesus and the holocaust was inevitable, being only the most recent example of a theme recurrent in European history and arising from them.

The Jews, seen as the evil culprits in all this, hoist on their own petard by way of their idea of one God and one true way, were bound to become the pariahs and thence the victims.

Meanwhile, had the idea never been thought up, had Christianity been confined to its original population, Jews would just have been another foreign people with nothing to mark them out as being in any way special or warranting any special treatment.

That similar factors are coming into play with regard to Islam and Muslims is interesting in our modern world. But the same revolutionary idea is one which we see played out from time to time even here, with the "one twue way" threads - the cultural shift from plurality of approach to duality of approach infects us from top to bottom, and is exerted upon all our relationships with the world around us due to the cultural domination of the west over the world.

E

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 10:31:29 AM   
cpK69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

Coincidence or divine will?


I’m going with the more common; intercepted by man.
 
I did a little research on Mr. Chambers, the man has an interesting history leading up to the story you provided a link for.
 
However, I’m not seeing the relativity for comparing the two cases.
 
Kim

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 11:28:49 AM   
RealityLicks


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The only relationship is that of a trial of God; these threads do digress sometimes and like you, I find Ernie Chambers to be a really interesting character.

On another digressionary note and with a nod to those who view the Bible as scripture, I think there is still a lot of mileage in the idea Freud posited in Moses and Monotheism, that the notion of "one God" which subsequently developed into Judaism originated in the worship of Aten in Ancient Egypt.

At the climax of the TV play, the rabbi's speech seems to illustrate the eternal problem of organised religion; that various parts of any holy text contradict others.  In one book, God is vengeful and cruel, in the next kind and forgiving.  This prophet describes a monistic world view, the next implies the children of other nations have other (lesser) gods.  There is something poignant about the idea of an interventionist, Iron Age deity still being invoked at the point of death in our modern age.

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 11:28:58 AM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: hardbodysub
No Jewish God, then no Christian or Muslim God either.
It's the same one for all three religions.

Actually it is not the same incarnate god.
 
And as for the Divine, the omnipresent, non-physical, non-incorporate entity: that was recognized also by the ancient Egyptians and by the Aztecs.

< Message edited by Rule -- 11/18/2008 11:29:46 AM >

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RE: God on Trial - 11/18/2008 1:38:17 PM   
cpK69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

On another digressionary note and with a nod to those who view the Bible as scripture, I think there is still a lot of mileage in the idea Freud posited in Moses and Monotheism, that the notion of "one God" which subsequently developed into Judaism originated in the worship of Aten in Ancient Egypt.



My understanding of the Bible isn’t that it claims there is only one God, but something to the effect that there was one original, therefore, any others would have been offspring from him. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood.

After my ’church going days’ I had come to the conclusion that the Bible was a book written by man, for man; literally. It wasn’t until my twenties that I started giving any weight to the words written in it, due to its mention of certain aspects about our planet that were not known to man at the time. As time has gone on, and especially in the last year, I have grown to view it as a puzzle, similar to a labyrinth, with lots of dead ends and wrong turns. Now I only use it as a comparison for the views of other religious/mythological beliefs.

quote:

At the climax of the TV play, the rabbi's speech seems to illustrate the eternal problem of organised religion; that various parts of any holy text contradict others.  In one book, God is vengeful and cruel, in the next kind and forgiving.  This prophet describes a monistic world view, the next implies the children of other nations have other (lesser) gods.  There is something poignant about the idea of an interventionist, Iron Age deity still being invoked at the point of death in our modern age.


I agree with your assessment. Is it coincidence that the actions of the two entities that have claimed to support faith in a creator, or one’s ’right’ to it the most, are often the cause for the most contradiction, especially when it is taken into account that it plays such a big part in how societies are structured?
 
Kim
 
 

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RE: God on Trial - 11/19/2008 12:58:37 AM   
hlen5


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Kim,

I am confused about your last statement. Would you care to elaborate?

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RE: God on Trial - 11/21/2008 9:07:12 AM   
cpK69


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Let me start by saying, I misunderstood what RL was saying when I posted my first response to it. While my thoughts still run along the same lines, it is probably best if I just start fresh.
 
When I read RL’s post, I was thinking about how much influence governments (of various types) have had over the years, on the translating of and who was allowed to read ‘the holy scripture’. I remembered how, after reading some of my book on mythology, I came to the conclusion; biblical text is mythology. At that point I realized, while the US government claims to be separate from church (I won’t bother to speculate how much influence churches might have on members of our government), it appears to me to be a religion it’s self.
 
The situation RL brings up in his last statement does not surprise me. Organized religion and government are the two biggest influences on a given societies structure, I do not think it is coincidence that the stories handed down about God are so contradicting within themselves, and from my prospective, from reality.
 
Kim


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