Why God is inherently right

In the context of Exaltism, ‘God’ and ‘deities’ attribute to the forces of nature - particularly the ones that let you survive. That is God’s love to me. The room for everything, our star, our galactic black hole, all of it which fits into the puzzle that allows you and everybody else around you to exist. If God’s love was absent, you could not possibly exist. Of course, one might argue that physical things like a star, a black hole, and more cannot love, and to that I would agree, but these unintentional consequences is what led to you be a living thing. We are the Universe’s way of observing itself. Life exists because nature inherently wants freedom to exist. The ability to be free is the key characteristic of being alive. Having a choice. Life is a right, like nature is a right, like God is a right.

So, as I said before, God/s cannot intentionally love anyone or anything. But it was God that created the forces of nature that ultimately allowed us to love. God cannot love its creation, but the creation can love its God. Like what Patrick Haley says in his book, “The Spiritual Essence of Religion and Science”, we all seek a harmonious loving union with God or the Omniverse. Doing so at this time is futile, as we do not know how to properly develop order and reason in the fundamentals of this being. With that being said, however, I’m sure they’ll be environmentalists 500 years from now saying something like, “save the Omniverse!”

To me, God cannot be right nor wrong. It just is. It’s impersonal, such as a distant star is to Earth. Its love is unintentional, so it really cannot be called love. If it were, it could only be considered inherent love, which is probably the most primal type of love there is. Inherent love is love that is already obvious from the start. Knowing that all that exists the way it exists could only come from a celestial body like the Omniverse - where all realities could potentially exist - is enough grounds for veneration and worship. God cannot love but without meaning, life can only love with meaning. Life is what gives this a meaning, a purpose, a drive to do something better. God loves innately; life loves intently.

Okay … that’s all I got for now. :laughing:

If I may, I suspect that what God’s love means is wrapped up in what Zacharias is calling the embrace of “welcome home”. ← That seemed to be the crux of what he’s getting at in the quote above.

I’ve had visions of the role that life plays in the universe that may shed some light on this:

Evolution is the only process we know of that comes close to microcosms coming out of the macrocosm. It is a process whereby parts of the universe attempt to individuate themselves from the rest of the universe. Every form of life is an individual being acting in semi-independence from its environment. Plants are the only thing that come to mind which are least individuated since they are reliant on being rooted in the ground for survival.

As a pantheist, I see this as a form of escape–a part of God trying to escape itself, to become independent of itself, to be “other”.

“Welcome home” must be the experience of death–the experience of being reunited with the source. The biological organism ceased to be the individual it has striven all its life to maintain and returns to dust, scattered back into nature. As a pantheist, I imagine this experience is like something, not a black nothingness than atheists and materialists believe in. If this experience is captured in those two words: “welcome home”, and if those two words capture God’s love (according to Zacharias), then one can only know God’s love in the unification of the self with the universe upon death.

It might be like the love of mother back when we were children, living care free in the safety of home, knowing nothing of the harshness and cruelties of the dog-eat-dog world that our parents went out in it to toil, compete, and sacrifice in order to make the comforts of home possible. It might be like returning to that, a remembering of whence we came, of how things once were.

This comes as a light vision and a dark vision. The darker vision asks the question: why did God want to escape himself in the first place. Is it really that horrible being God? I once said in another thread:

Why would life put in so much effort unless the alternative was so much worse? But then what does that say about the state of being God?

^ But that’s the dark vision. In all likelihood, the light vision seems right: deaths seems like an incredible calm, not a struggle. Rocks, lakes, mountains… those parts of the universe which do not evolve… seem at peace. And when we are in the grave, laying there motionless, we too will be at peace.

This speaks more to our place in evolution than it does to our individual selves. According to this view, we–our conscious selves–are just going along for the ride. None of us actually chose to evolve out of the universe and become the individuate being we experience ourselves to be. And if we were to choose to return to nature by way of suicide, we most likely couldn’t do it. Instincts which we have no control over, which were built into our biology long before we even existed, will typically stop us. We–the conscious mind–only comprises maybe 50% of the brain (at most)–but the organism that evolution has worked arduously over eons to create is the whole body–90% of us is unconscious ← and that’s the part that persistently chooses life over death. ← That’s the part that God awaits, ready to embrace with open arms and say “welcome home”.

If that’s what God’s love is, then above all else, we cannot say we even remotely understand it. What is the experience of being one with the universe like? Can anyone here honestly answer that? It might be like returning home to mama, it might be like remembering where we came from, it might be like recalling why there isn’t a need to struggle in the game of individuation… but these are surely only shoddy metaphors at best.

But this does give us a bit of insight: God’s love seems to have a lot to do with being itself–just existing–of being united in the whole. But as for what it is, it seems too far beyond my ability to comprehend.

Gib

Alternatively we could say we are all adoptive entities [as we don’t participate in the making of our bodies], and your daughter does not belong to you or the mother, ever. so you should love whomsoever comes into your life in the manner of a daughter e.g. same for an orphan as for ‘your own’ daughter. I wouldn’t expect that of people of course.

I can get past a lot of aesthetic flaws in a woman if I loved her, but I have limits. Perhaps your concern is a matter of adaptation, we kinda freeze-frame people in the minds eye, and we have ideals and standards before we even met them. So we have a kind of distilled manakin of them and how they should be. Thus when they change beyond that mental model, you think they have changed or they are not the thing you loved. That’s just the aesthetics, personalities are more ambiguous and at no time set, you meet a new situation and you must react differently such to engage it. So how do we know how we are going to act, and hence how can we know what we or others are in any singular sense? People often decide someone has changed, when in reality an event has made them act differently.

  • so people are fluid and not rigid.

_

Well, that might be what we “should” do, but a parent’s love for his children hinges heavily on genetics.

I was asking myself the question: why do I love my daughter unconditionally? And the answer verily seemed to be: because she’s my daughter. Then of course, the test for unconditionality came to mind: so what if she wasn’t my daughter? ← It was a test to see if a parent’s love for their children could match God’s love.

Then what does it mean to love a person unconditionally? To love a person no matter what? Who can tell me they’d love a person literally no matter what–like the person became violent and abusive–say they suffered a brain injury and lost the ability to act appropriately–suppose they became a serial killer.

The prodigal son.

When he turns away from sin, he is welcomed back and there is a feast to celebrate.

While he is sinning, he is separated from the father.

Thanks for that, phyllo–that’s kinda what my thoughts on life, evolution, and their relation to God as the universe make me think of.

So in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, would the son represent life and the father, the universe?

I’m not sure how you can generalize it that much. How does a plant or bacteria or insect reject the universe?

At the least, the ‘son’ would have to be a conscious being who is able to make decisions.

I’m speaking as a pantheist. Also, I don’t think of the separation of life from God at the level of individual bacteria or insects, etc… I think of it as life in general, and life as a part of God trying to escape the rest.

Let me ‘spin’ the prodigal son parable … look at it from a different perspective.

The prodigal son didn’t ‘sin’ … he was given the gift of experience … an experience that helped him to understand himself and his place in life …

Oh! … that we should be so lucky!

There are 7 billion+ people on the planet at the moment.

How many of them understand themselves and their place in life … beyond the thin veneer of their local culture, politics, religion and so on.

Pick a number … let’s be ultra conservative … 1,000

My bet … this 1,000 individuals discovered themselves and their place in life in 1,000 different ways.

So Pilgrim, if I can tie this back into the current line of thoughts:

The “escape” from the unification with God might be thought as more of a perilous journey, a great adventure, the purpose of which would be to gain something, some enrichment of experience, some deeper knowledge, a better understanding of things… but it is a precarious and uncertain journey, one that both the son and the father dread, and this is precisely why the father awaits the son with open arms, ready to welcome him home.

Well, what have we learned as a species? We’ve learned what the universe looks like from a scientific perspective–and we’ve penetrated the universe with those visors quite far–maybe if I’m right, that we are little bits of the universe separated off from the greater whole, and we will reunite with it in death, then is it possible this perspective of the universe from the point of view of 21st century man will be brought back with us? Like the son bringing back gift for the father? Will God be able to look at it and say: Hmm… interesting!

Gib … I would only change one word in the above eloquent description of life. I would change the word “escape” to “exile”.

Exile and redemption = we are little bits of the universe separated off from the greater whole, and we will reunite in death.

and for some … before death :slight_smile:

So, life is a separation from God? And death is reunion with God?

No wonder so many people see religion and spirituality as anti-life.

Phyllo … I suggest life is a voluntary … self imposed … exile from God. It is the first and truest instance of “freewill”. The return to God is akin to the prodigal son … the "gift’ to God on the return is the ‘son’ himself to the ‘father’ in the parable.

I suggest so many people confuse the notions of religion and spirituality … and very very few truly understand either one.

Let me try to illustrate.

Many tribes of the indigenous North Americans practiced a very sophisticated type of spirituality … long before the “white man” came with their “God”.

For example … some tribes sent their young boys out into the wilderness … all alone. On the surface this sounds like a cruel act. The boys were instructed/taught the parameters of a “vision quest” … and were sent out into the wilderness to seek their life’s purpose … ergo vision quest.

Seems logical that the boys who were successful had some form of communication with the “universe” … with what the “white man” calls God.

Let me share my understanding of the words ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’.

Religion … The etymology of the word “religion” is indeed disputed. I prefer re-eligere, “to choose again,” religion being the recovery of the link with God. Every religion … with all it’s worts, blind spots, contradictions and so on … has the underlying intention … recovery of the link with God … is honorable/noble.

Spirituality … spirit is substance … not matter … not visible … indescribable … yet substance nonetheless. Embodied in spirit is what we call ‘consciousness’ with spirit being an integral part of what it means to be human … as well as all other life forms and inanimate objects. Spirituality is humanity’s attempt to understand the notion(s) underpinning the word spirit … with the sole purpose of cooperating with it … being very careful to avoid attempts to control … or exploit for personal benefit(s) … spirit.

How do we cooperate with spirit?

I like Carol Stuhhmueller answer …

That must mean that you had free-will and chose to live before you were conceived (or born). IOW, you existed before you were born in the physical world.

It also means that God is not in this world, because if He was, then you would not be separate from Him while living.

I don’t think the prodigal son story is that complicated.

I put them together because both consider the physical world to be inferior to some other realm. Therefore, the goal is to get out of this life and into an ideal (which may not even exist).

I strongly disagree with her. I think that reason is God’s gift to humans. If you abandon it, then you are on the wrong path.

Phyllo … you insult your intelligence.

All religions are man-made constructs.

Spirituality is indigenous … to all humans and more … existing within and beyond all life

Let me again apply Moreno’s good counsel … move from the abstract to the concrete … Stuhhmeeller’s comments are abstract … let me share a personal experience.

The thought that arose in my mind … “take a piece of paper and a pen in with you” … was not the result of “reason’”

My acceptance of the Spirit’s wish has certainly cost me big time …