okay now before you flip out hear me out say that 'God' , is not a force of energy in the universe , not the collective souls of every soul , not some all powerful man in a beard and his Jewish [Anglo-saxon?] son say god is a way of life , god is living your life in the NOW , not dwelling in the past and not worrying on the future , not clinging to abstract concepts , but just being you and focusing on whats going on now now the ideal person who doesn't believe in god , would not cling to abstract concepts and lives in the now because he knows his time on earth is now and worry's not about what will come so the ideal god follower and the ideal atheist are doing the same thing , living in the now in the way there heart guides them whatya think?
Well if thats how you feel what we think shouldn't matter to you I'm assuming it does because you've asked us what we think and if you're trying to come up with something new, like a new idea, I think it still needs work you should analyze it yourself and continue to go over it
ever read the Tao Te Ching? the way and its power. its the idea that "god" or what we think of him , is not some mystical being but its simply the power and joy and beauty that comes from living your life 'truely' , not according to what their book says , but the book is meant to direct your heart towards your inner self and from there you decide what your life is and who 'you' are , and live it to do this you would have to exstinguish any concepts such as "god" , "heaven" "spirituality so basicly an 'ideal' atheist has just skipped that step and already lived his life. what im saying is , what if god isn't really important and we are all just doing the same thing anyway?
Well I can tell you're on the right track but if you're following the tao you should these things need not be determined its up to you and only you to understand them and not your way to try to make sense of them through the opinions of others find these questions out thru yourself eh? The Tao is a powerful thing but there's nothing to it and what appears to be a lot to it at the same time...I feel like often it leaves the reader at a misunderstanding
But hey I can agree with you on your ideas of what god is and whether or not its relevant because the tao does this just as stephen hawking attempts to do but through science But its not to make you an atheist and a non believer in God because I still believe in a God or a highest but I understand that whether my belief is right or wrong it doesnt matter it doesnt make a difference...its as to say if 100,000 years from now you meet a giant sitting on a throne who never needs to explain himself to you but you assume he's God or even so he tells you he is God and by that he means he exist within the universe and you've simply misunderstood him and then later he introduces you to a thing that appears even higher and greater than he its not actually important and I believe that the highest of us knows this already
why yes i have read the tao te ching, it has been mentioned or made referance to about 28 times on this forum since ive joined (29 if you count this post). im asking why you would call the absurd and meaningless flux of our universe 'god', doesnt that just create another abstract and pointless concept? and what exactly do you mean when you say 'their' book is meant to direct you towards your inner self? do you mean the tao or just any religious text, because if you do i couldnt disagree more. i think our idea of 'true self' are very different. also, people have to destroy a lot more than just the typical ideas of god in order to live truley.
the human language is limited and there are only so many words to choose from to try and explain an idea and i guess i didnt do a really good job in my head this was a really big realization and it makes clear sense to me in my head i just suck balls at trying to write it down
this was actually just uploaded today, I havent took the time to listen but judging by the title it goes with what you're saying [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNQL9V2WLCo&feature=sub]YouTube - Alan Watts On God Is Now On The Present Moment.[/ame]
haha so fustrating isnt it those who know dont speak those who speak dont know people assume this means people who display there beliefs and shove them down peoples throats are wrong [and while it does] but its also really saying that if something is true , then you cannot speak it
I don't think the belief in god has much to do with living in the now. If you think about it, most us live almost entirely in the past or the future. Regret and hope are examples. We think about what we've done and what we plan to do with almost all our time, or so it seems to be with everyone I've known. If you go to school, you might ask yourself: do I do this because I enjoy learning or because it will brighten my future a little? Hopefully, the answer would be a little bit of both, but we can't turn away from the future any more than we can the past. Living in the "now" is a novel concept, but eventually it will be later (and something other than meditation should hopefully happen between now and then). I think it is more important to find satisfaction as often as possible as the moments pass and work toward an ultimately fulfilling satisfaction in your life as its whole.
Well if that's what you perceive as being god, and you believe other people do the same thing, then yes, from your perspective, those two things are completly the same. However, what if I believe that god is a big bearded man in the sky who wears robes? Since I do not believe that man exists, I claim I don't believe in god, even though to not believe in god, I must believe that the concept of god exists, therefore allowing me to choose to not believe in it. I'm fuckin high
Haha I love this post I agree with ya completely I thought the whole point in the tao was to understand its just the way and you're already living it? but to me when people try to adjust and change themselves and live in the now and do this and that differently than they did before they are simply changing themselves because of something they read or heard that sounded right but indeed I love spending my "present" time reminiscing on all the good times in the past and all the good times im going to have in the future and what I'd like to do in the future I understand where it makes sense that yes you can only imagine the future and think about the past but to me living is all about doing what makes you happy and we're always moving towards the future so there's nothing like chasing a dream and having a desire to reach your goals all this talk on nothingness I think is not good for people...obviously its natural for us to have desires thats how we get shit done It seems like your way can only be learned through you and nothing else...like I love listening to watts I could do it all day but when I think about what I've actually learned from him its nothing I just like listening to what he has to say and the way he puts things...same thing with reading the tao But I dont feel compelled afterwards to think different or stop desiring or this or that
Clearly, you've learned something in the process (maybe from your inspired self?) or you wouldn't go back, I'm sure.
Learned in a sense yes...not learned as in something I've taken with me that I think about...but definitely learned in the sense of understood something I previously knew nothing about or didnt understand basically my point was it doesnt matter because for his teachings to me they are a living in the now kind of thing...i dont think about them afterwards only when I'm listening to them
i agree OP, Gandhi probably would too Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? I believe that all religions of the world are true more or less. I say "more or less" because I believe that everything the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect. Gandhi the same is true for atheism