God and what we talk about - Epilog

Don't worry yourself about the heresy of others, in that regard you need only worry about yourself. Any way you slice the Bible, someone will disagree with you and how "pure" your take is on it will always be in question.

We are obsessed with conflict and being "right", which in the end is completely meaningless.

Lastly:
"the ability of infinity to be boosted in magnitude and yet still remain the same size"

God and what we talk about - Ch7 So

This chapter reminds me of Star Trek Voyager: Blink of an Eye where the "Earth Shaker" does not want their existing god to have the fire fruit and therefor build a new alter so their new God may have the fire fruit.

We need someone to communicate our deepest feelings with.

What is our motivation?

I need to research yoga and its ideals.

THe chapter divisions in this book suck. He has unfortunately picked the structure and then tried to cram in the chapters. It works well for the first half of the book but then breaks down in the second half.

So god is bringing us together.

People watching.

While I was reading today from the comforts of Burger King, I was observing people in the dining area. A young couple came in and sat on the same side of table. They stared blankly as they waited for their food. When they got their food they ate quietly, still staring straight ahead. In the one instance I heard the women speak about some plans they still did not look at each other except for a glance.

Then later a family came in that I had seen elsewhere in the past. Previously it was part of a large group and they seemed to function as any other family, polite and proper. Here though, getting food, it became apparent how dysfunctional and passive aggressive they were. Most disturbing of all, was how calmed they all seemed about it. The dysfunctionality has become common they were desensitized from it.

The biggest lie you can tell yourself is that you don't care.

God and what we talk about - Ch6 Ahead

Moving forward. A to B.

The Plan

God has a plan for all of us. That is something we are often told. Sometimes we ponder that plan, possibly in regard to ourselves and sometimes in regard to someone else.

There are those who believe the world was wonderful back in the day. They spend their lives trying to get back to there. I don't mean to say that some things should not be restored, but we should generally be moving forward. What kind of plan would it be if we were supposed to be undoing everything. Plans go forward and we may all be at a different step. I am still trying to get to B. Unfortunately I left the map in my other life.

Despite some peoples dedication to moving forward it often appears that they are moving backwards. Though I have to say, if there were no protesters, what would motivate us to do anything?

God and what we talk about - Ch5 For

Hello, my name is Thomas and I am a skeptic.

Experience

I try to immerse myself in a religious environment, like I will somehow absorb its message by osmosis. At heart however I am still a skeptic. In reality, I am standing there in a lab coat, I have no idea what it means to be religious.

I'm not sure if there is anything I can do about that. If there is a God, I hope he is FOR us. In the rare circumstances I do pray, I hope he is listening and cares. Despite God loving everybody, I hope I am good anyway.

This chapter took a few turns, I think I will need to revisit it and maybe update this post.

God and what we talk about - Ch4 With

Are we experiencing the presence of God? Is God with us? Does it matter if God is or is not?

Eh.

Many people seem to think so, on all accounts.

I am not so sure.

In my old age (also known as the last 5 years) I have picked and chosen my battles. I used to view myself as an open minded. Now I just am. I have learned that 5 years ago I was in fact not open minded. I probably still am not, though I am a lot more than I was.

I've seen people who are really into the God thing, they feel God is with them all the time. People who are into the God thing and wish God would throw them a bone just once (And some of them, if you are listening, could really use one [not a real bone, I'm talking figuratively. But you probably knew that, cuz you are God.]). Then there is the atheists and the agnostics, for the most part they seem just fine (You don't really miss something you don't expect to be there).

Transcending

People often describe food as being SO GOOD, it transcends. It is more than food can be. I like food, I have sat next to people who talk this way and I can't help but look them in the eye and say "It's alright."

We are supposed to have faith in God, God has a plan for us, God is more than us, transcends us. We are supposed to pray. I've prayed, maybe even twice. I don't remember what it was, but I must have been in a pickle (at least emotionally).

For the most part though, the only thing I feel "transcends" is relationships. There is so much more than what is at the surface.

I don't know if there is more to life than what is at the surface. It seems safer to assume there is not and hope there is. I try to get the most out of life. 

Closing

I apologize for how much of a mind dump these posts are.

I'll leave you with this

 

God and what we talk about - Ch3 Both

Words and how we describe many things. How you describe things make a big difference. You may not even stretch the truth but you may provide too little or too much precision. How something is described can portray confidence and authoritativeness in a description.

Faith and Doubt

It would not be faith without doubt. Without doubt you must be certain, but when it comes to God how could you be certain? Similarly, it is natural to question that which is not certain.

Conclusion

I am not really sure what the point of this chapter is. Seems mostly a verbose way of saying it is difficult to describe God. Yet we can't seem to stop describing God.

God and what we talk about - Ch2 Open

I am a bit of a slacker when it comes to keeping on top of things. I finished a class a month ago that I had been blaming for taking all my time and yet I am still just now getting to chapter 2. Which, by the way, is a really long chapter.

OPEN

There seems to be two camps and you have to belong in one or the other. Either you are a theist or you are atheist. But what about the people who identify as "other"? I would say that I am still biased in many regards (The whole supernatural thing always bugs me). However, I would also say that I am not firm set in my ways and can accept other view points most of the time (There will always be exceptions, like Scientology). I wish more of the world was more accepting of people. Instead if they don't fall within the systems of either side they are shunned and hide from the "normal" world. There are groups that I know that don't speak up, they wish they could but the world doesn't understand. The world always focuses on the bad and a few rotten apples mean everyone has to suffer. When an event like 9-11 happens (I am writing this sitting in the shade of a 9-11 monument) suddenly if you look Muslim you must be a terrorist.

Rob goes into a high school physics lesson (and a little AP Physics) discussing space and time, atoms and quarks. While we can find patterns and compute probabilities, we can't say anything for certain. Why did a certain particle interact the way it did? Who knows, but we can tell you what the odds were that it occurred.

Rob talks about blurring the line between matter and spirit and how observation changes things in the quantum world. This reminds me about one of my harebrained ideas in high school that maybe, just maybe, the world observed away god. I am talking schrodinger's cat, except with the operation of the universe. What if the atoms and the quarks and the fact that plants need nutrients in the soil didn't exist, until we went looking for them? There is more that goes into it that probably only a Software Engineer would think about, but I'll save that for another time.

"We are an exotic blend of awesome [...]." We can describe a great deal of our physical composition, but our soul is still a mystery. The soul is real (A persons sense of identity. I think, therefore I am.), but it is beyond analysis and description. Rob suddenly gets a hardon for the Germons because they have a word to describe the one "beyond analysis and description"'.

If there is anything to pull from this chapter, it is to not be so nitpicky and accept that people believe different things. They might be right and they might be wrong, but so might you. Can't we all just be friends?