The debate continues.

It all started out because of a post over on WNG's blog, a post about hell. Followed shortly thereafter, by His Sinfulness ranting about hell and how hell being an eternal thing is not all that common. MightyMightyM and I continued the discussion in religion, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: one of my favorite lines about God is actually from an Ani DiFranco song, its origins are probably from somewhere else, but it is still really good.

“and I think,
what if no one's watching
what it when we're dead, we are just dead
what if it's just us down here
what if god ain't looking down
what if he's looking up instead”

I like the idea for some reason that there is a God, but he has no interest in us and is looking somewhere else

MightyMightyM: "he who sees in me all things, and in all things me, is never far from me and I shall never be far from him."

personally, I believe that god is not really a person as we envision, but rather like the ocean
- the stillness that begat motion
the consciousness that begat all consciousness

me: hmm I like that :)

MightyMightyM: we can never really know him
or her

me: or it

MightyMightyM:
exactly, there is no pronoun that can fully encapsulate the concept
there is no sex, no gender

me: no shape, no dimensions
MightyMightyM: none that can be attached to Brahma
me: yeah
MightyMightyM: our job is to reach Moksha, or oneness with the original consciousness
and it takes many lifetimes to achieve
me: yeah, if not an infinity of time

me: I also don't get that why do we have to have this all great…thing. That gets all the credit for things we are very capable of doing our selves. Why does the Christian concept of God get all the credit? I think it is crap

MightyMightyM: true
Christians' logic is baffling
like prayer
they pray for god to help or to change the outcome
of something
but if it doesn't work out the way they wanted they say it wasn't part of god's plan
well then what good does prayer do?
if he already has a plan and is not going to deviate from it, then why pray to change it

me: it doesn't, why not try to change your own problems, or change your own outcomes. There are an infinite number of possible futures

MightyMightyM: right
the scariest part is that the Christians that are running this country believe that Christ is coming soon and will take the righteous to heaven, leaving the wicked here to burn
this belief makes it so that they don't need to worry about creating a sustainable living
no reason to preserve any part of the earth for the future
no reason to try to prevent our inevitable demise
or at least stave off
me: which for those of us "left here" which we will all be, will have nothing left to live off of. Destroying what we need, and creating our own hell to try and dig out of. We can burn, rape, and pillage the land, and it is ok because “God” will come to save us and take us to heaven.


MightyMightyM: but I’m not cynical about it at all
me: no, not at all, and that is the important part ;)

MightyMightyM: but I do love Diogenes - he carried a lantern in daylight searching for an honest man.

me: I love his comparison to dogs, and how we should all take on a dogs virtues instead of our own anxiety ridden state
MightyMightyM: yep

did you know the Zoroastrians consider dogs the equals of men?

me: no I didn't actually

MightyMightyM: I would even go a step further and say dogs are better than men
like Diogenes said, and you pointed out, we should strive to be more like them

me: yeah, loyal, are content with the basics, and are always in the present moment no matter what

MightyMightyM: except we need to be cognizant of the past and future, but live in the present
me: that is true, we have to learn from what we have done, and prepare to an extent for the future or at least be mindful of the options that lay ahead of us

Max: the dharma pig lives
me: in our stomachs!

(PS:
If you can guess where the dharma pig quote comes from, you will get…some sort of special prize, that we will figure out later.)