Books : OT: Are you interested in god?

OT: Are you interested in god?

i'm not talking about religion. but some people go on and on about god and how they are curious about whether god exists. i have never been curious about the answer or the question. god does not interest me at all. i'm not an atheist. im simply indifferent to this question. the fact that i would think twice before committing any evil is due to conditioning and doesn't have anything to do with god. could it be because my family never told me about god? i was asked to pray to god before going to sleep when i was a kid. but i discontinued the practice when i entered my early teens. and nobody admonished me for it.

however, like muriel spark said, if the plane i was on was about to crash i would call for god (even if i'm an atheist). or atleast i think i would.

anyway, are any of you interested in god? if yes, why?

ps: this post was inspired by a reading of GRAHAM GREENE's THE END OF THE AFFAIR. while i enjoyed the book, i couldn't really understand why the characters were continuously conversing with god.

I get melancholy if I don't write. I need the company of people who don't exist

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Interesting topic. I'm an atheist and have been ever since I first gave the question any serious thought, when I was seven or eight. I've never been bothered by the idea of there being no god, or the absence of an afterlife.

But the question, or the idea, of god does interest me quite a lot, though I guess more from a cultural or anthropological point of view than anything else. I'm interested in the different notions of god(s) that different peoples throughout time have landed on, and the religious beliefs that have sprung up around those gods.

Most of all, though, I'm interested in the concept of faith, more than god. I've never been someone who felt the need to pray, or to attend church, or got anything out of believing in something. The idea of having faith that someone is watching me, judging me, cares anything about me and the rest of humanity, holds no appeal for me whatsoever. For someone who depends heavily on facts in my daily life, I find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea of making decisions or forming opinions based on something as intangible as faith.

But I remain fascinated by people who do have faith, who live their lives by a code held up by tradition and the belief that it's the right way to live. I find it frustrating and admirable in approximately equal measure. I don't pretend to understand it, but I do find it interesting!


*Formerly Nothin_but_the_Rain*

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Yes. I was an atheist when I was a kid, but was always interested in the Subject, even then. When I was in my early twenties, about the time I started reading Graham Greene, I made what is often called a conversion. I call it waking up.

Believing in God is somewhat akin to having a hunch. It comes naturally to some people. Others go in and out of Faith several times during their lives. Others, like yourself, are either wholly uninterested, or they're queasy, or just downright hostile, about God. That also changes with some people.

God is a continuously interesting Subject to me, as a subject.


🇺🇸 Liberty • E Pluribus Unum • In God We Trust 🇺🇸

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Hey hey hey... Clever choice in words.
Interest is what makes life different.
Someone who'd say, no, thanks... Would be a serious case for treatment.

Manelle
"to tax and to please, no more to love and to be wise, is not given to men"

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

...only in the context of history and the various religions...so no.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

No. I'm an atheist married to a philosopher, parent of another philosopher. I'm not sure which one of them now owns the embroidered and framed sign I made for my husband, which reads God Is Boring.

SPEED
Don't mistake my silence for weakness. Nobody plans murders out loud.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Not in the slightest, and I never have been. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the works of certain God-botherers, often of the bead-rattling persuasion, such as Spark, Burgess and indeed Greene. Though given that I can recall virtually nothing of that particular book other than that I've read it, I perhaps didn't find it as engaging as most of his work.

No valley too deep, no mountain too high.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

I'm not a believer myself, I've never spent a Sunday morning in church, but that doesn't stop me appreciating works of fiction where it is assumed God (or the devil) exists. I can suspend disbelief when reading Stephen King's The Stand, or watching things like The Omen or Brimstone and Treacle.

"the fact that i would think twice before committing any evil is due to conditioning and doesn't have anything to do with god."

I would say belief in a god is due to conditioning as well. No one is born into the world with an innate conviction that we all need to be "Saved". As far as actual evidence goes, there isn't anything to be "Saved" from. As for the power of prayer, why would Muriel Spark need to call on God to stop her plane from crashing? If God is omniscient, he's supposed to know about everything that goes on. If God can see that a plane full of people is about to crash, and he has the ability to stop it from happening, why does he have to wait for someone to ask him to stop the plane from crashing? Talk about lack of initiative...

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

I am curious about God as a god. The concept of worship is anathama to me. I cannot wrap my head around the concept of worship. I understand love, even adoration, but lying prostrate before something in worship is....beyond me. I am curious about people who truly worship God. Is this based in fear, or is it some overwhelming all encompassing love that makes you give yourself over to that extreme?

Without being disrespectful to anyone's belief system, I personally find the idea of worship unpalatable and the object of said worship to be suspect. Who would want to be worshiped? No one I would be interested to know.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Love through fear, the essence of sadomasochism, as Christopher Hitchens once memorably put it.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

I believe that there are really no certainties of knowledge in this life, everything that someone can propose can be refuted simply based upon their initial belief.

To state this philosophically, Consciousness, Sentience, Knowledge, as long as they exist hampered by the limited sensory gatherings of our material bodies will always remain imperfect and incomplete. Owing to this limitation, any assumptions that we make are merely guesses, and not very educated ones at that.

I personally leave the questions of 'God' for 'God' to resolve, instead here is a rough quote from Ch'eng I that points to what should be called religion.

The only system (Way) worth learning and devoting yourself to-is none other than those things which correct the continuing faults of your own mind and character and nourish those physical activities that aide to create happiness in yourself and in others.

When one abides by this way as a totality of one's existence and practices it with sincerity because one deeply realizes it is the only true path worthy of consideration then that is what is meant by the word 'Sage'.

Therefore a Sage is not someone beyond your reach to emulate, as they are only enacting the simplest method that is imaginable, when you also dutifully follow this path, you are the same, in accord and one- regardless of your mistakes as your true intent continues to shine brightly in your heart, like a lamp, illuminating the ever changing and unpredictable landscapes of this passing existence and selfish influences.

What does interest me is that at once there seems to be a higher power that is maintaining somekind of continuing order to this existence but it does not appear to obey any other laws then unto itself, I wonder if this power is even caring? or has this higher power simply left the shepherding of humanity for us to take seriously or deny.

I have an odd feeling that if I could ask it directly?

It would just shrug back at me.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Yes.

Why? Because He ("He" being an anthropomorphic placeholder; although, in the Christian faith, God the Son manifested as a man - with "Son" also being an anthropomorphic placeholder.) created Reality and Time. The physical universe is a closed system with a beginning and an end. We, as humans, would have no idea what kind of a god He is without Revelation (that is, supernatural impartation of knowledge). Now, whether an individual accepts the validity of any such "revealed knowledge" is entirely a personal choice.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?


The physical universe is a closed system with a beginning and an end


That is not necessarily true. Let's assume something non-religious, that the 'Big Bang' theory is correct.

1.What came before this 'Big Bang'? my mind wonders what might it be.

2.On the other-hand my mind can conceive that all physical things must have a beginning and end to them. Just as past, present and future seem to go on continually around me even though I have only my memories to recall in the present to tell me that the past and future came and will become. Why am I so sure of a past and a future when all that I can recall or every conceive of- is in the present moment?

This as a paradox that is not easily solved.

If there is an end to the known Universe, then what is beyond that 'endness' my innate sense of Infinity seems to tell me that it must always go on and on.

Someone or something is playing tricks on me :( Is this somekind of Cosmic sense of Humor?


"revealed knowledge"


Appears more like a confusing juggling act to me.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

This might not be practical information, but as for the link between God and Big Bang, the fiction anthology Futureshock (2006) has a humorous story which offers an explanation. It is an extremely Jewish story, and a real side splitter.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

'Futureshocks' looks like a great little collection of Sci-Fi shorts-thanks, will pick up a copy here;

Imagine using this 'time-viewer' to watch yourself in the past-LOL, no wonder God is ignoring me :( I am a whinny little bastard, ain't I.


Synopsis
Experience sensory overload in this anthology of stories from today's masters of speculative fiction as they reveal the terrors, triumphs, and seeming impossibilities awaiting humanity in the years to come. From artificial intelligences and bioengineering to transhumans threatening to make mankind obsolete, these cutting-edge tales present a future in which every day brings shocking new developments undreamed of the day before-a future in which tomorrow never knows what may follow... Book jacket.

In this stunning collection of short fiction, 16 of today's masters of speculative fiction reveal the terrors, triumphs, and seeming impossibilities awaiting humanity in the years to come. Featuring never-before-published stories by Kevin J. Anderson, Paul Di Filippo, Alan Dean Foster, Caitl n R. Kiernan, Louise Marley, Sean McMullen, John Meaney, Paul Melko, Robert A. Metzger, Chris Roberson, Adam Roberts,Mike Resnick & Harry Turtledove, Robert J. Sawyer, and Robert Charles Wilson-320 pages

"Before the Beginning" is a science fiction short story written in collaboration by Harry Turtledove and Mike Resnick, published in Futureshocks, edited by Lou Anders, Roc, 2006. Set in the future, the story focuses on the invention of the time-viewer, a device that can show events of the past, rather like a movie. The story quickly charts the uses the time-viewer was initially put to, including crime-scene investigation and the recording of more lurid moments of history (e.g. the assassination of JFK), before it is used for more scholarly purposes. Naturally, many of the presumptions held by humans are debunked or confirmed.

The main story itself focuses on the deaths of three cosmologists who attempt to go back and view what "existed" before the Big Bang. Each is found dead, for no clear cause. When the French police begin an investigation, one inspector also dies, and so it is left to his colleague Jacob Dreyfus (a descendant of Alfred Dreyfus and a Jew, so seen as somewhat expendable) to determine what these four men have seen that caused their deaths. What he discovers changes the course of human history.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

Nope. I find religion much more interesting than God, funnily enough.

Rusty chains and armoured pillows stuffed with silver pins

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

As a lapsed Catholic, no.

Steve Harris of Iron Maiden is a Brony

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

I'm interested in religions. Mostly of religions influence on various societies through history.




It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.

Re: OT: Are you interested in god?

You sound like an anti-theist. That's how I'd describe myself, if I had to; it's not that you don't believe in god, rather you refuse to acknowledge the idea of there being one. I hate the fact that you have to be either a theist or an atheist when no-one ever calls themselves afairyist, or agoblinist, or asantaclausist. I don't see what the difference is between gods & fairies.

Not a chance. I doubt I'd be interested even if I thought he existed.

Shouting god in a perilous situation suggests nothing; it's learned, just like screaming 'for fuq's sake!' is when irritated, or automatically saying 'oops!' when you spill or drop something...nothing else in it bar conditioning. I've often shouted 'Gordon Bennett' when things go wrong. I don't think he exists either.
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