Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.
― D.L. Moody
Bible
They said it!
The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.
— Ferdinand Magellan
They said it!
Cogito ergo boom.
–Susan Sontag, from Styles of Radical Will
The wisdom bot
Wisdom is fast becoming obsolete. Through the ages wisdom of the older generation was valued by the community. History was passed along, language was preserved and numerous skills were conserved. After a long working life it was assumed the older members of the family new a thing or two about life and were respected by the community and family. While God Seeker Guy is perhaps a bit of a Luddite, he is not blind to the changes technology is bringing to our communities and families.
“The western world has become alarmingly accustomed to discarding anything that elicits boredom.”
Technology is eroding the contribution of the older generation. We won’t need to ask for advice or information from them, it will be stored in computer chips implanted in our brains at birth or offered to us by wisdom bots plugged in next to the toaster. The traditional role of grandparents will evaporate as kids grow up preferring to spend time with their iPads and smart phones when grandparents visit.
The Wisdom Bots and our lives. However, instant gratification is the sure path to loneliness since it takes many years and much compromise, understanding and sacrifice to establish long lasting relationships.
Elon Musk has said that if we don’t embrace artificial intelligence, we as a race will become obsolete. That notion does not bode well for the traditions the older generation has to offer the young.
The new gods of AI will demand total acquiescence and we will look back on the holy books as faulty, irrelevant curiosities. The omnipotent will retreat, our thinking will be done for us by appliances and we will no longer be available to the gods as playthings.
GSG (God Seeker Guy)
They said it!
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.
–Emo Philips.
Danger dude!
As mentioned in an earlier post, God Seeker Guy is often accused of being ‘poisoned fruit’ and of presenting a danger to the faithful. This accusation was again tossed his way at a recent gathering. It is absolutely beyond understanding why anyone would see him as a menace to anyone except maybe himself. He finds no threat or peril from those who hold strong religious beliefs, in fact he welcomes a good old fashioned evangelistic tirade every now and then.
“How does a contradictory viewpoint translate into something toxic?”
Why are the religious so easily panicked and alarmed when an opposing view is offered? Socrates has said: “The greatest threat to both society and the individual is the suspension of critical thought”, and yet most of the faithful appear to embrace a grim determination to suspend not only critical thinking, but any kind of thinking that does not embrace their own views.
How does a contradictory viewpoint translate into something toxic? Falling back on the pitiful argument that you must have faith is not a good enough argument to convince God Seeker Guy to join anyone’s flock. His search continues.
-GSG (God Seeker Guy)
They said it!
On the other hand, the Bible contains much that is relevant today, like Noah taking 40 days to find a place to park.
–Curtis McDougall
God and feta cheese
Can God Seeker Guy develop a kinder, gentler approach to religion in the new year? While he would like to soften his approach in his search and perhaps become more open in his thinking, to date he has found little or no encouragement to do so. But let’s give it a try.
Most of the worlds people adhere to some kind of religion, so there must be something that causes them to believe in the divine. What is it? I have no idea, however here is my best guess.
The human ego demands that there be something more to life than work, play, sleeping and shrimp cooked with tomatoes, onions and covered in Feta cheese. Do you as believers need religion just to get through the day or is your faith an honest effort to understand yourselves as a Homo Sapiens? You tell me!
Most religious adherents appear to believe blindly, which becomes apparent when trying to engage in religious conversation. In depth religious dialogue is rare, rigid opinions and bizarre explanations are the norm.
“The most obvious answers is that we never have to choose…”
To be sure there are those who genuinely try to explain their faith. For example, the Mormons are very patient and never raise their voice in a conversation about their faith. Many Muslim acquaintances have proven to be very intelligent and are much more tolerant than the media suggests.
While the Jewish community is less inclined to explain itself, and has difficulty separating religion from politics, we should remember that all of the great religions are born of the Jewish faith.
So what to believe? What to embrace as a lifelong guide? The most obvious answers is that we never have to choose, we are born with our religion and for the most part die with it.
If born in a Christian country to Christian parents does that make one a Christian? If so then religion is simply an accident of birth and geography. There is nothing divine in that, nothing supernatural, it is a fluke of nature. If there is only one right faith then the Almighty should have done a much better job of explaining himself, thus we could have avoided a great deal of human misery.
GSG (God Seeker Guy)
Oh hell!
“There are degrees of punishment in Hell depending on the severity of the offense.” (Lk. 12:47-48).
This quote from Luke is very reassuring to those of us who have taken the odd fall in the sinning dept. It’s good to know that a small lapse in judgment while briefly coveting a neighbors spouse will not elicit the same punishment as the serial killer, or maybe it will, we’re not really clear on that point.
Apparently we are born sinners, guilty before proven innocent, condemned before the crime is even committed. Many live in fear of retribution from some unseen entity, a tool created by humans to put the fear of God into other humans. What was perhaps a simple control mechanism designed by the likes of Moses when he downloaded his commandments from the cloud, has evolved into a universal tool for manipulation of the faithful.
“How can we believe in genetics, the cosmos and the merits of tofu and still adhere to directives concocted at a time when few people could even read or write.”
We can free ourselves from fear and self-loathing by simply recognizing that man created God, not the other way around. That religion was simply an uninformed effort to understand science and is fast losing its relevance.
How can we believe in genetics, the cosmos and the merits of tofu and still adhere to directives concocted at a time when few people could even read or write. If education had not been controlled by the church it’s demise would have come much sooner.
Civil law keeps us in order, the fear of a parking ticket is more powerful than the fear of punishment in Hell, at least on a day to day basis. It is indeed a tragedy that many of us live in fear of vengeance in an afterlife.
To be sure humans crave something bigger than ourselves for guidance, but do we need an all-powerful somewhat miserable God? Author Stephen Prothero talks about history’s most dangerous idea “that human beings can solve the human problem on our own without recourse to God or divine revelation.”
The bible of course has an answer- ” I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon, let us take our fill of love until the morning.” (Proverbs 7:17-18 ) – just be careful who you’re coveting.
GSG (God Seeker Guy)
They said it!
In Biblical times, a man could have as many wives as he could afford. Just like today.
– Abigail Van Buren (Dera Abby)
Godless guy?
Finding a place in the religious realm is not impossible, however to resolve the issues inherent in searching for faith, surely we must keep an open mind. God Seeker Guy has been accused many times of being godless, however there are some diehards who claim he is spiritual under the sarcastic façade. We shall see.
If we have the rare option of choosing our faith rather than having one thrust upon us at birth, we have a daunting task ahead. All of the world religions demand attention and thoughtful inquiry.
“Blind faith is embraced when logic is abandoned…”
It has been said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. While some of us claim to make a great soufflé – an extraordinary claim indeed- the proof can be found in the oven, proof of God must be found elsewhere. While there are many recipes for the Divine, how we collect and combine the ingredients will determine whether we create a useful product.
Faith is a strange thing, we’re often reminded that we must believe that our children love us, we must have faith. However this is a love that can be confirmed when we see the smile on their faces when we give them money. God also needs huge amounts of money, but it never seems to be enough and smiles from God are difficult to elicit, wrath is more common.
Blind faith is embraced when logic is abandoned so there must be better arguments for belief than those offered by most religions.
As W.C.Fields once put it: “Everybody’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.”
-GSG (God Seeker Guy)
God and dodo birds
Author Stephen Prothero talks about history’s most dangerous idea “that human beings can solve the human problem on our own without recourse to God or divine revelation.”
Can we in fact do without religious faith as we know it? probably not, but why? If religion is merely an uninformed effort to understand science, why are we still in the clutches of religious dogma seventy thousand years after the beginning of the cognitive revolution.
It looks very much like there is a desperate need deep within the human condition that craves for some kind of religious experience. Perhaps we just need someone to be in charge, someone or something to do our thinking for us, so we can go to the game or hang out in the pub without concern for the truth.
Man’s conceit demands there be more to life than our assigned number of heart beats.If we’re so eager to embrace some kind divine revelation, why do we waste so much time, energy and human life squabbling over who or what is the correct form. Maybe the Greeks had it right and we’re just playthings to be forsaken when the gods get bored, like the Dodo Bird and Thylacine (look it up!)
-GSG ( God Seeker Guy)
They said it!
The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.
– Herb Caen
Divine defects
Why are we here? Is the human condition important? The answer of course is yes, we’re obliged to think so or we would have difficulty getting up in the morning to make coffee. The gods, however, could have done a much better job of constructing humans. We rust very quickly, most of us non-ecclesiastics are flawed, and few of us can resist the evils of jam-filled doughnuts.
Nietzsche said “woman was God’s second mistake” – meaning of course that man was his first. If God was just practicing when creating man, his efforts backfired. He should have given Noah plans for a leaky boat and left the planet in peace.
After Eve’s epic picnic with Adam, the human race has endured a rocky relationship with the divine. We struggle constantly to measure up, but never seem to satisfy the demands of our heavenly hosts. To be sure, we are not perfect, but if the gods created us, they should take some responsibly for their flawed design instead of blaming us for their faulty workmanship.
Although we all eventually end up at the return counter, in the interval, it seems we’re obliged to endure endless reminders that we are failing at the herculean task of being human.
-GSG (God Seeker Guy)
They said it!
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
– Oscar Wilde
God Seeker Guy 