The Five Fallacies about God

[James S]

Hi All,

Anyone familiar with the more recent writings of Neale Donald Walsch will recognise the title to this thread right away.

Having read of the five fallacies about God, I was struck by how simple the concepts are, how obvious they are once they're put into perspective, and how many people have allowed their lives to be governed by these fallacies.

I'm not posting this to preach my views or put other people's beliefs down. I just thought it would be interesting to see what other members of the Pulse think about these concepts.

The five fallacies about God are:

1. God needs something.
2. God can fail to have his needs met.
3. God has separated us from him because we have not given him what he needs.
4. God still needs what He needs so badly that God now requires us, from our separated position, to give it to Him.
5. God will destroy us if we do not meet His requirements.

I see many debates on the validity of one religion or religious philosophy compared to another, yet how many of them are still bound by these fallacies? How many religions use these fallacies as a means to control us?

Your thoughts....

Blessings,
James.

[Stookie]

When you look at religions like this, these guidelines for God break down to superstition. It's more like expecting God to work how we want him to. When something perceived to be bad happens to a person, it's easy for a person to think "God's punishing me for something". And when something good happens think "God has blessed me". Or even when we don't get what we want - a certain job, money, relationships - we think God is upset with us.

You can substitute "Karma" with "God" and it's the same thing: Superstition

If God is infinite, wouldn't his works be infinite, meaning everyone's life at all times, regardless of a person's perception of what is good or bad in their life?

I think even if a person knows nothing of religion, just an idea of a "God", they would come up with superstitions of their own as a way to explain their existence and the negative and positive situations in their life. It's probably ingrained in every human.

[andonitxo]

Well, Catholicism asserts that God is incognoscible, so any study about him/her/it would have no sense in those terms.

Anyway my viewpoint is the following: God decides to improve himself in some way, so he creates a stage where to put the game tokens and into some of them it puts part of his being as a link to absorb new knowledge from the limitation that he establishes.

It would be something like: hey, I'm all mighty!, I can do anything!,... wouldn't I learn a lot more with some self-imposed limits?.

So:
"1. God needs something."
Maybe to experience new ways of living.

"2. God can fail to have his needs met."
There's no failure, but improvement. Evolution needs time to go ahead, and as many attempts as they can be needed.

"3. God has separated us from him because we have not given him what he needs."
Hah, hah, that concept of separation is totally physical. God is in us all the time, but not completely. If we want new tissues we remove some cells from our bodies to put them into some appropriate environment to have new tissues developed outside of us.

"4. God still needs what He needs so badly that God now requires us, from our separated position, to give it to Him."
He started the experiment and he will finish it up. Anyway if God is in us, he is indirectly (without powers) achieving it.

"5. God will destroy us if we do not meet His requirements. "
My goodness!... this kind of statements are unfair.

[CFTraveler]

My answer to that is the old standby:  "How to Know God" by Deepak Chopra.  In it he explores the stages of consciousness that people/societies are in and how they form their conceptions of God.  It's good reading. It sounds like the categories would be complementary to Walsch's.

[James S]

When you look at religions like this, these guidelines for God break down to superstition. It's more like expecting God to work how we want him to.

Precisely Stookie!
This I feel is pretty much at the core of the issue.

If God is infinite, wouldn't his works be infinite, meaning everyone's life at all times, regardless of a person's perception of what is good or bad in their life?

Correct again!

This is where there is a huge inconsistency within the major religions.

If we look at the first fallacy: "God needs something".
What could God possibly need or even want?
According to religious texts (and something I feel comfortable in believing) God IS all. There is nothing that exists that is not God or part of God. Therefore how could God possibly need anything. He/she already IS everything.

So then if this is true, why then do the major religions all tell us that he needs something, particularly from us?

"5. God will destroy us if we do not meet His requirements. "
My goodness!... this kind of statements are unfair.

Yes it's a good one isn't it?
Yet the Bible, the Qu'ran, even the Bagavad-Gita are all chock full of God seeking vengence, killing people, destroying cities, because they didn't do what he wanted them to.


Blessings,
James.

[Leyla]

I was just pondering this just yesterday, why is god is so insecure that he craves constant praise, worship and admiration, to the point he would raise up rocks to do it if we did not. (Actual bible verse.)

And yet, this diety is so pathalogical with violent mood swings that can only be described as bi-polar, he lacks any qualities worthy of my admiration, much less my worship.

[andonitxo]

Anyway, and to be fare, we should check different "godly" sources. I mean, time ago I found an author that stated that bible's old testament was a tale of how consciousness developed (supposely the different parts of the mind: subconscious one, conscious, super ego, and so...).

Taking it in count maybe, and only maybe, that bi-polarity could be explained better.

He went on saying that every element in the old testament had a different meaning: men where the thinking processes while their wives/sisters where the emotional ones... and so on.

Just another viewpoint.

[CFTraveler]

It is the view of some Jewish Kabbalists (and many metaphysical religions, including the one I am part of) that the Bible is a Symbolic work- that the stories in the bible (both old Testament and New) are not historic representations of things that happened, but stories designed to  celebrate holy days and teach 'metaphysical truths' (however you want to define them) by the use of symbols.  For example, Many old patriarchs are shown to have transfigured (Jesus wasn't the only one).  This would be taken not as a literal thing, but as a symbol of their transcendence, or their use of light- with meanings associated.  Another example would be the term (new testament here) of Jesus having been put in 'swaddling cloth'.  Apparently the term 'swaddling cloth' was code for 'future royalty', and also used in the old testament for some of the kings.  So it follows, and it is the theory of some that the stories in the bible were written, sometimes ambiguously on purpose, because they were meant to be interpreted by the reader.  So each interpretation would be coming from the spiritual understanding  of the reader, and it would show their development.
BTW my interpretations are not my own, they were taken from 'Liberating the Gospels' written by Bishop Spong.

[James S]

CFTraveler & andonitxo,

What you've said is in keeping with the beliefs of the Gnostic Christians, the not so popular faction that was basically overshadowed by the opposing Literalist Christians.

The Gnostics hold very similar views to the Kabbalists - that the bible is a book of spiritual truths written in metaphore. Our own Beth has published works based on this study. Gnostics also believe in both the male and female aspects of God and the biblical teachings. They see it as having a male outer layer with the inner wisdom being of the female.

Leyla,
Its amazing what kind of concepts will be produced when you apply five sensory human thinking to God isn't it?
Well, actually no, it's not really amazing. Its actually quite pathetic.

Blessings,
James.

[CFTraveler]

James:

The Gnostics hold very similar views to the Kabbalists - that the bible is a book of spiritual truths written in metaphore. Our own Beth has published works based on this study. Gnostics also believe in both the male and female aspects of God and the biblical teachings. They see it as having a male outer layer with the inner wisdom being of the female.

Good point.  Actually, there is one very respected Kabbalah expert (Rabbi Gershom Scholem) who wrote wrote that the Spanish Kabbalah borrowed some concepts from the Gnostic Jews. (Yes, there were Gnostic Jews- there views were roughly the same as the Gnostic Christians, only they saw Messianic times in the future, instead of in the past.)

[Leyla]

Consider the very primitive mind set of the people who wrote the Old Testamant. They were the same as the modern Fundamentalist Moslems you see on the news, shooting off guns and dancing in dirt streets. They didn't write the Old Testamant as any kind of "mystical metaphore." In there minds these writings were "GODS TRUTH," the ONLY truth, and they would have you stoned to death for suggesting otherwise.

I think the "mystical metaphore" scam is a way for modern Christians to escape all the blood, gore and clearly immoral/psychotic actions of their god. Saying it wasn't meant to be taken literally, when in fact, it was written to be taken literally.

[CFTraveler]

Consider the very primitive mind set of the people who wrote the Old Testamant. They were the same as the modern Fundamentalist Moslems you see on the news, shooting off guns and dancing in dirt streets. They didn't write the Old Testamant as any kind of "mystical metaphore." In there minds these writings were "GODS TRUTH," the ONLY truth, and they would have you stoned to death for suggesting otherwise.

I think the "mystical metaphor" scam is a way for modern Christians to escape all the blood, gore and clearly immoral/psychotic actions of their god. Saying it wasn't meant to be taken literally, when in fact, it was written to be taken literally.

Two things:  The blood/gore actions were not of their God, but of their followers.  The second:Most of the midrashic comments on the Old Testament written as early as the late dark ages contradict this.  They show the symbolic meaning of the old testament, and divided into two schools of thought.  That's how the Kabbalah and Zohar came to be written down.  It addressed some of the symbolism of the old testament, especially the creation myth in Genesis.  Yes, parts of the old testament was used as law, like the torah and the talmud, but all the books weren't thought of that way as around the middle ages, from written accounts.  As to mystical christians, they've been around since the very beginning (The Gospel of Thomas was written around 30 to 90 A.C.E.) and they didn't take scripture literally.  The pity is that they were wiped out practically early.
What I'm trying to say is that not all the people that wrote the OT were literalists- the problem is that because of their liberalism they got wiped out by them.  Religious liberalism comes and goes in waves- we certainly didn't invent it.  Did you know that in the middle ages parts of the Kabbalah/Zohar both Rabbis and Islamic scholars worked together to put together their symbolic renditions of creation?  Of course, that was before the Inquisition.