God and the law

[Athena]

Until Athens, rulers ruled by whim, as does the God of the bible. In Athens people gathered and debated truth, as we are now doing in forums as this one. They began with a belief in several Gods and as they questioned life through the imaged preceptive of many Gods, they exploded human intelligence, far beyond what faith in one autocratic God could do. Then they asked, how do the Gods resolve their difference? They concluded the Gods debated and aruged as they were doing, and what really ruled the universe was reason. Reason, results from all this arguing and coming to a consensus on the best reasoning. This is what democracy is all about. It is rule by reason, not the whim of God or king.

Reason, is the controlling force of the universe, made manifest in speach. We are not born knowing it all, but must learn. Anyone who has potty trained a child or attempted to teach a child to read, knows how hard teaching and learning can be. The Greeks reasoned because we can learn and we can reason, we are like the Gods. This understanding of being made in the image of God, is very different from the Christian superstition of a God and Satan with supernatural powers, and the possibility of being possessed by these supernatural powers.

Athena, the patron Goddess of Athens, taught men to make the own laws, as opposed to the God of Abraham arbitarily giving man laws. She didn't begin doing this until after the Persian wars, when her temple was rebuilt and used to teach the world about the new relationship with the God, about democracy. Her male match is Apollo, who gives us words like apologize, apology. This goes with words like polite and political.

Pythagoras studied math in Egypt where it was a secret of the preist class, and he attracted a Greek following who saw math as sacred and wrote down their on going research in math, making Pythagoras and not the preist of Egypt known for this math.
This played a huge role in understanding rule by reason and how we need to make our laws. Science is to democracy, what religion is to autocracy. Religion is rule by a God and those who claim special knowledge of this God. Democracy is rule by reason, and the laws are made by people who debate the reasoning until their is a consensus on the best reasoning. This is not exactly rule by the majority as we have understood it without an understanding of democracy as it was conceived in Athens.

Christianity has lately preverted our understanding of democracy, and men like Pat Robertson preaching the power of Satan are in front of the pack of those who could detroy our democracy. We must return to understanding democracy as rule by reason, and that means an effort to understand universeral law, not just the bible.

[Disinterested]

Truth is debated here?

[Athena]

Quote by: Disinterested Truth is debated here?

Truth is not debated, but our understanding of it.

[Disinterested]

Seeing you are Athena and the Goddess of Wisdom perhaps you can tell me what truth is?

[SoccerfreakAB2]

You resemble Plato in that you see a perfect democracy of "reasonable" people. Unfortunately, I have found that reason acts almost like a gift, or more or less an improbable feature for a human. Few have the ability to reason well. Reason applies to mathematics as well. The ability to act upon something for a reason, or for a "why is this" answer, can be seen in numerous mathematical problems and involve these reasons added to the formulas or equations.

Believing in god is not reasonable. Human reason asks why believe in God? The "reasonable" answer is that humans need morals to live, to thrive, or else population dwindles. Even evolution agrees that every living thing "wants to live," and wants to be alive, or if death is inevitable, it will continue the species through reproduction.

The human continues to ask, why believe in God?
The "reasonable" answer is that humans need to know. Know why, know what, know who, etc. A God provides these answers, thus settling this fear of "not knowing" aside.

Now, the next step, asked seemingly only by atheists, considers "is belief in God necessary?" This answer is, reasonably, no. Seeing humans have morals, God is not necessary. However, on the other hand, humans have not recieved omniscience, or such a desired form, and are therefore, by their own "reason," empted to believe in a God or natural diety to provide these answers.

A belief in God is thus unreasonable to the true philosopher of reason

[Athena]

Quote by: Disinterested Seeing you are Athena and the Goddess of Wisdom perhaps you can tell me what truth is?

Wise does not mean all knowing, and knowing I am not all knowing makes me wise.

If you want truth you must seek it as the Gods did, exactly as the people in these forums are doing. They come with what they know and from their point of view, what they belief is right, and they discuss these ideas, destroying the ones that prove useless and building on the ones that prove useful. It is the all the disagreement that keeps the discussion going and forever changing the consciousness of those involved. This is what makes democracy so awesome. The constant expansion of consciousness, pooling the awareness of millions of minds, so that man kind can know much more than any individual can know.

[Athena]

Cicero in re Power and Law
Power and law are not synonymous. In truth they are frequently in opposition and irreconcilable. There is God's Law from which all Equitable laws of man emerge and by which men must live if they are not to die in oppression, chaos and despair. Divorced from God's eternal and immutable Law, established before the founding of the suns, man's power is evil no matter the noble words with which it is employed or the motives urged when enforcing it. Men of good will, mindful therefore of the Law laid down by God, will oppose governments whose rule is by men, and if they wish to survive as a nation they will destroy the government which attempts to adjudicate by the whim of venal judges.


Marcus Tullius Cicero 106-43 B.C.

[Athena]

Quote by: SoccerfreakAB2 You resemble Plato in that you see a perfect democracy of "reasonable" people. Unfortunately, I have found that reason acts almost like a gift, or more or less an improbable feature for a human. Few have the ability to reason well. Reason applies to mathematics as well. The ability to act upon something for a reason, or for a "why is this" answer, can be seen in numerous mathematical problems and involve these reasons added to the formulas or equations. Believing in god is not reasonable. Human reason asks why believe in God? The "reasonable" answer is that humans need morals to live, to thrive, or else population dwindles. Even evolution agrees that every living thing "wants to live," and wants to be alive, or if death is inevitable, it will continue the species through reproduction. The human continues to ask, why believe in God? The "reasonable" answer is that humans need to know. Know why, know what, know who, etc. A God provides these answers, thus settling this fear of "not knowing" aside. Now, the next step, asked seemingly only by atheists, considers "is belief in God necessary?" This answer is, reasonably, no. Seeing humans have morals, God is not necessary. However, on the other hand, humans have not recieved omniscience, or such a desired form, and are therefore, by their own "reason," empted to believe in a God or natural diety to provide these answers. A belief in God is thus unreasonable to the true philosopher of reason

Spinoza asserted that for a concept of god to make any sense at all, it must simply be nature. That is, god cannot be something outside nature that controls it, but must necessarily be part of it. According to Spinoza, God IS nature. While Spinoza was excommunicated from his Jewish community in Amsterdam and condemned by Christians as well for being an atheist, he was very devoutly religious. He saw the traditional anthropomorphic (man-like) god as an abomination, completely rejecting the wonder of nature, from which life comes. To Spinoza, nature is the true expression of God. And each of us is part of it. Unfortunately, his highly technical, mathematical style of writing limited widespread appreciation of his work.

http://pweb.netcom.com/~zeno7/spinoza.html

[pit bull]

such are the warnings which god has given to gaurd men against changing in any manner that which he has revealed or cammanded. These soulmen denunciations apply to all who by their influence lead men to regard lightly the law of god. they should cause those to fear and tremble who flippantly declare it a matter of little consequence whether we obey gods law or not.
all who exalt their own opinions above divine revelation, all who would change the plain meaning of scripture to suit there own convenience, or for the sake of conforming to the world are taking upon themselves a fearful responsability. the writen word, the law of god, will measure the character of every man and condemn all whom this unerring test shall declare wonting.

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Athena http://pweb.netcom.com/~zeno7/spinoza.html

From that reading I got this:

Spinoza believes God is not a person, a thing, nor a simple idea, yet nature itself. He considers them equal, interchangeable, yet cannot purpose by the process of reason. For, as humans, and as existing lifeforms, we do in fact have purpose: living. We all want to live. Because we have emotions, we want to live happy lives. And it's not even the individual, we want humans to continue as a species--that's what life does. We have purpose. Nature does not, or so cannot be proven so, and is as much a valid concept as aliens controlling nature from a spacecraft. God and nature are not equal, for every man made god and concept has a personality, whereas nature does not. It is repetitive and consistent. It does not change how it works. Although the thought is interesting in that there is no "creator," only nature continuing, which leads to the inevitable question of how this nature itself began.

[Athena]

Quote by: pit bull such are the warnings which god has given to gaurd men against changing in any manner that which he has revealed or cammanded. These soulmen denunciations apply to all who by their influence lead men to regard lightly the law of god. they should cause those to fear and tremble who flippantly declare it a matter of little consequence whether we obey gods law or not. all who exalt their own opinions above divine revelation, all who would change the plain meaning of scripture to suit there own convenience, or for the sake of conforming to the world are taking upon themselves a fearful responsability. the writen word, the law of god, will measure the character of every man and condemn all whom this unerring test shall declare wonting.

Are you serious? God commanded the jews to preform animal sacfrices and to stone people, and told the jews they could own slaves by could not be slaves, and told people to do a lot of silly stuff. No one follows the commands of God as they were given, except Muslims in backwards countries and we have used this as excuse to attack Muslim countries and impose our ways on them. Do you advocate stoning people?

[Athena]

Quote by: SoccerfreakAB2 From that reading I got this: Spinoza believes God is not a person, a thing, nor a simple idea, yet nature itself. He considers them equal, interchangeable, yet cannot purpose by the process of reason. For, as humans, and as existing lifeforms, we do in fact have purpose: living. We all want to live. Because we have emotions, we want to live happy lives. And it's not even the individual, we want humans to continue as a species--that's what life does. We have purpose. Nature does not, or so cannot be proven so, and is as much a valid concept as aliens controlling nature from a spacecraft. God and nature are not equal, for every man made god and concept has a personality, whereas nature does not. It is repetitive and consistent. It does not change how it works. Although the thought is interesting in that there is no "creator," only nature continuing, which leads to the inevitable question of how this nature itself began.

Well for me, God is nature. God is the the entire universe. God is not the law giver, but God is the law. This is most important to understanding democracy as it was concieved in Athens and understood by Cicero a Roman law maker. All of our laws are to comply with God's laws. I am arguing this so strongly, because I don't believe a God ever commanded human beings to sacrifice animals. I do not accept the bible as the authority on God, but as Protestants at one time believed, I think science in the authority on God. Ignorance and the bible lead to witch hunts, philosophy opening us to knowledge, ended the witch hunts and brought us to sanitation and many, many more scientific advancements.

Those who oppose what I am saying have lost an understanding of awe and reverence. They are looking at a society that was corrupted when public education turned to teaching technology and left moral training to the church. The church created and empowers Satan, and the belief is a stumbling block to truth. Several of our forefathers were deist, and they saw nature as God's only written bible. Our Declaration of Independece speaks of the Laws of Nature. From Athens through Cicero to the founding of our democracy, the belief is in a God of reason, the God that is the Laws of Nature.

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Athena Well for me, God is nature. God is the the entire universe. God is not the law giver, but God is the law. This is most important to understanding democracy as it was concieved in Athens and understood by Cicero a Roman law maker. All of our laws are to comply with God's laws. I am arguing this so strongly, because I don't believe a God ever commanded human beings to sacrifice animals. I do not accept the bible as the authority on God, but as Protestants at one time believed, I think science in the authority on God. Ignorance and the bible lead to witch hunts, philosophy opening us to knowledge, ended the witch hunts and brought us to sanitation and many, many more scientific advancements. Those who oppose what I am saying have lost an understanding of awe and reverence. They are looking at a society that was corrupted when public education turned to teaching technology and left moral training to the church. The church created and empowers Satan, and the belief is a stumbling block to truth. Several of our forefathers were deist, and they saw nature as God's only written bible. Our Declaration of Independece speaks of the Laws of Nature. From Athens through Cicero to the founding of our democracy, the belief is in a God of reason, the God that is the Laws of Nature.

I understand but what is the difference between your position and that of an atheist? You both agree nature (=God to you) rules the universe.

[Flip Jackson]

Athena, I have a hard time trying to figure out how to respond to your threads.

I agree with a lot of what you say, and I recognize that you know what you are talking about. Ignorance and the Bible combined have caused a lot of problems throughout history. In fact the mixture of ignorance with anything has caused problems, but the Bible gave people unquestionable authority to commit some of these atrocities.

I agree that reason is terribly important in trying to find truth as we understand it. Although, we must remember that reason doesn't mean seeing things as we see it. Reason just means having a justified way of thinking about something, right? That's why two people can use reason to debate opposing views.

Well, time for bed. Maybe more later. Peace out all.

[Athena]

Quote by: Flip Jackson Athena, I have a hard time trying to figure out how to respond to your threads. I agree with a lot of what you say, and I recognize that you know what you are talking about. Ignorance and the Bible combined have caused a lot of problems throughout history. In fact the mixture of ignorance with anything has caused problems, but the Bible gave people unquestionable authority to commit some of these atrocities. I agree that reason is terribly important in trying to find truth as we understand it. Although, we must remember that reason doesn't mean seeing things as we see it. Reason just means having a justified way of thinking about something, right? That's why two people can use reason to debate opposing views. Well, time for bed. Maybe more later. Peace out all.

"Reason just means having a justified way of thinking about something, right?"
Not exactly. I believe it was King James who argued against the people's desire to control the king with limits and laws. He argued he always gave his reasoning for the laws he wanted. Justifying what we want is a whole meaning of reasoning. Especially in a democracy, that reasoning is suppose to be a shared process, where people work for a concensus on the best reasoning. As those who gave us our constitution know, not everyone was happy with everything said in the constitution. There was a lot of compromising, and the best reasoning can be far from perfection. Reasoning, science, is not absolute truth, but only our best understanding of truth at the moment.

Reasoning is more a process than the end result. Ideally when we present our arguments we begin with here is my reasoning- point a, point b, point c and we invite others to agree or disagree and give their reasoning, until there is a consensus on the best reasoning. Always that reasoning must be based on universal turths, as best as we understand them. Wow, would this end some of the government corruption we have today!

The slight but important difference is caring more about truth than anything else. My reasoning may be all wrong, and sometimes I really hope it is. So I am not always attempting to justify my point of view, but to explore the greater truth.

[Athena]

Quote by: SoccerfreakAB2 I understand but what is the difference between your position and that of an atheist? You both agree nature (=God to you) rules the universe.

I guess the difference would be I leave room for the possibility of a caring God or a realm of existence that is beyond what we expreince. I do not believe matter is the end all. I do not believe reality is completely defined by matter, because there is also spirit. Now the nature of this spirit can surely be debated. If there is a God aspect to spirit can be debated. I think perhaps my mind asks questions that others think their belief answers? So I live with questions instead of answers.

I like the Hindu concept of our sense of reality being the dream of the great dreamer. All that is, is a cycle and one of the cycles is the dreamer waking up. Then only the dreamer exist. When the dreamer returns to sleep, the reality we experience begins all over again. There is the Mayan galactic calender and the astrological New Age, which both coincide. I think there are still many mysteries for us to solve. That the bible would prophecy the last days, is no big deal to me. So did the Mayans and astrologist. And the biblical predictions are only logical any way. However, possibly logic with a better understanding of our planet than we expected the ancients to have.

Orignially the in the end everything was to be consumed by fire. That fire is the fire of life.
Obviously as life increases on the planet, there comes a time when there is more life than what is left to be consumed. Throw away all the predictions if you like, and just look at the geological and biological information. We are at the point where within years, there will be more life than the planet can support. What if the Hindu dreamer is also the biblical God making the earth anew? Whatever, our understanding of God, it must, absolutely must be, an understanding of nature because that is God. It is what know of the universe and unversal laws that will be the reality we manifest. We are God's consciousness.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Athena We are God's consciousness.

Very good attempt to understand the absolute reality. I am Hindu and won't tell you that you talk like another Hindu. But, you talk like rational and reasonable intellectual. I have gone through your conception of God and its laws. I did not like your statement because it resembled what Sanatan Dhrama has documented over thousands of years, but because you talked un-biased. Leaving all religions (including Sanatan Dhrama) aside, I would like to place on the thread my views as follows:

The absolute reality has to be obviously one and only one, for which there can not be any debate. What is that? This can be debatable!!! Everybody has right to speak out, but it should be rational and full of logical reasoning.

Let me erase even the word "God" from my statement. Universe around us is limitless as per various scientific theories. Accordingly, it is presumed it goes on expanding and also it is said at some point of time, it may start contracting. Meaning thereby universe has mathematical limits of minus infinity to plus infinity. It would not be wrong to believe that the cause behind such limitless universe is also limitless. Let us term this Limitless Cause as Something beyond conception or perception with no shape, size or matter; say is something undefinable. Now let us take whatever we can perceive for analysis. Very few phenominas existing in nature have been understood by us scientifically. One thing which is common in all the phenominas is Reason. Because of this reason the existence of whole universe is based. Therefore some reason must come into play from that Something (cause behind the universe) for existence of this universe. Mathematically we can remove a big confusion between the universe (ifinite as explained earlier) and the cause behind(also infinite) that both are one and the same. This is because infinity + infinity = infinity only. This way mis-conception of Creator and Creation can be easily be wiped out from our minds. So the reason for creation of universe cease to exist as it is proved beyond doubt there is no separate creator and creation. Both are infact one and the same thing.

"We are God's consciousness" as said, can therefore be modified somewhat as "Anything which is concievable and also not concievable is SOMETHING unexplanable". One is free to call that something by name of God or even Dog, does not matter much!!! Some call it supreme consciousness. One thing is clear that there is no God like thing sitting somewhere which controls this universe. The properties of this universe are HIS properties only. The conclusion is that this universe and beyond from all sides is that SOMETHING called GOD (Supreme Consciouness) by people in general. We are part and parcel of that consciousness only. We are separate identity as long as our mind agrees that way. But, after absolute realisation of reality of self, our individual identity gets erased and only supreme consciousness remains. :rolleyes:

Other things like consciousness, reason, nature' law etc are well explained, so need not be repeated!!!!

I do not believe matter is the end all. I do not believe reality is completely defined by matter, because there is also spirit. Now the nature of this spirit can surely be debated. If there is a God aspect to spirit can be debated. I think perhaps my mind asks questions that others think their belief answers? So I live with questions instead of answers.

This is the only problem, how to prove there is spirit which is defining reality completely. So you live with the biggest question "Whether there is anything which is beyond matter that may be called by any term??" No you are not living with the question, but have answered by yourself. The answer is Consciousness. Putting this into a definition Consciousness is something which you call YOU :) Try to find out that YOU is trick!!!!!!

[Athena]

Kuldeep, I have a copy of Bhagavada-Gita by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, but cultural barriers prevent me from understanding it. Do you understand what I mean by cultural barriers?

I am so impressed by your mathematically thinking! How is this for you? I understand Hebrew and Arabic language have strong math componnet. I feel a sadness that this aspect of thought/language was not carried over into Christianity. Our cultural heritage goes back to Pythagoras and an understanding of sacred math, but this was not carried through Christianity except in Cathedral building. Somehow the Christian masses have remained unaware of mathematical thinking. Even when we study math, we do have full understanding of it. It is hard for use to wrap our minds around what you saying. I think this misfortune is what leaves many Christians superstitious, and this superstition leads to misunderstanding others.

It appears to some that Hinduism is the worship of many Gods. There are equal Christian images, but our images are in the form of humans/saints/angels, so they don't looked like many different gods as do Hindu images. We have so many cultural differences to over come before we can share understanding. I hope you will stay with us.

[northtexan]

Quote by: Disinterested Truth is debated here?

Is debate truthful here?

Is debate truthfully here?

Quote by: Disinterested Seeing you are Athena and the Goddess of Wisdom perhaps you can tell me what truth is?

The silly mortals always want to gods to simply hand them the answers. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Quote by: SoccerfreakAB2 You resemble Plato in that you see a perfect democracy of "reasonable" people. Unfortunately, I have found that reason acts almost like a gift, or more or less an improbable feature for a human. Few have the ability to reason well. Reason applies to mathematics as well. The ability to act upon something for a reason, or for a "why is this" answer, can be seen in numerous mathematical problems and involve these reasons added to the formulas or equations. Believing in god is not reasonable. Human reason asks why believe in God? The "reasonable" answer is that humans need morals to live, to thrive, or else population dwindles. Even evolution agrees that every living thing "wants to live," and wants to be alive, or if death is inevitable, it will continue the species through reproduction. The human continues to ask, why believe in God? The "reasonable" answer is that humans need to know. Know why, know what, know who, etc. A God provides these answers, thus settling this fear of "not knowing" aside. Now, the next step, asked seemingly only by atheists, considers "is belief in God necessary?" This answer is, reasonably, no. Seeing humans have morals, God is not necessary. However, on the other hand, humans have not recieved omniscience, or such a desired form, and are therefore, by their own "reason," empted to believe in a God or natural diety to provide these answers. A belief in God is thus unreasonable to the true philosopher of reason

Reason, schmeason! Some reason themselves into belief, some out of it; most probably fall into one or the other, for whatever reason, without much reasoning. Reason leads me to say that neither theist nor atheist could have come to their positions by pure reason -- but then, neither did I come to mine in that manner.

[Athena]

Quote by: northtexan Is debate truthful here? Is debate truthfully here? The silly mortals always want to gods to simply hand them the answers. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Reason, schmeason! Some reason themselves into belief, some out of it; most probably fall into one or the other, for whatever reason, without much reasoning. Reason leads me to say that neither theist nor atheist could have come to their positions by pure reason -- but then, neither did I come to mine in that manner.

Okay, the subject of the thread is God and laws, and your commnet is closer to the subject than some. Our civil laws are based on our world view and our concept of God is part of our world view. For example, the bible tells us to stone people and in some countries this is practiced. Do we believe God told the Hebrews to stone people? If so, we aren't we doing that?