The Big Charade - Blind Chihuahuas Playground

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scooper

2006-04-28, 22:31 #1

User title: Pooper Scooper
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Subject: The Big Charade

A dear, departed friend of mine once asked, "If there is a God, then why the charade? Why doesn't God appear? Why doesn't God talk to us?" I think he was getting at the concept of Deus Absconditus, the Hidden God. Why does God hide from us, forcing us to seek him in prayer or meditation?

He also pointed out, from bitter personal experience, that things can happen to you (like depression) that can, "suck the meaning of life right out of you." For him life had no meaning in itself. Only his relationships had meaning to him, and during bouts of depression, even that would be muffled.

So here is a tough one for you. Why are we here, and why is God absent? For my deceased friend, this was a lament. If God exists, he thought, then the present arrangement is cruel. For him it was a permanent cry of "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Because there is more to Religion than pleasing your Imaginary Friend.

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QuaereDeo 2006-05-03, 01:45 #2

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The meaningless of life... For me, this became the basis of the meaning of the word "Faith." There was a day when I read the book of Ecclesiastes five times - in the one day. The Preacher also found life to be meaningless. But I found a message of hope in that book - and what became, for me, Faith and the core of my beliefs.

Let me back up a little. I believe God exists. I cannot believe in the coincidence of creation without a creator - some divine reality who "starting" the whole thing.

And I believe that God loves us because of a single concept - Colors. We can see, and we receive pleasure from - Colors. (And there are other things that we experience and that give us pleasure which fit into this same concept.) However there is no evolutionary purpose to this ability to see colors. So why do we have it? The only answer I could think of was that the divine creator wants us to experience joy.

If God loves us, then it follows that he has given this life to us as a GIFT, a PRECIOUS GIFT. It seems meaningless, a charade, smoke and mirrors. For some reason that I cannot fathom, he says that this is a good gift. So the meaning of Faith for me is to live my life as though I believe that this life is good because I believe in the giver of life - even though all evidence seems to point to the contrary. I try to live the sacrifice of joy.

Why is God absent? I do not know. My puppies do not know why I do not want them to go potty outside in the rain. My puppies do not know why I leave every day and come home tired. My puppies do not know many of the "whys" of my actions. My puppies struggle as they learn the behaviors I want them to learn. I have no better way to teach them because of the basic reality of what they are. I love my puppies, but I do not want them to go poop behind my chair in the living room. I love my puppies but I must leave every day and do the work that brings in a paycheck to provide (among other things) their basic needs and bones, chewies, and squeekie toys. We are all constrained by the reality of what we are. As a Christian, I try to be the best "puppy" I can be - to try to learn the lessons of how to behave as God's treasured child and an ambassador of his kingdom - and trust that God knows what he is doing and that he is motivated by love, not cruelty.

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Caliban 2006-05-20, 07:23 #3

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QuaereDeo,

Colors. Gee, I thought all the monkeys and apes (and birds) see in color. It is adaptive in forest environments, because the additional information provided by color helps to find food and avoid predators. Taking pleasure in it is adaptive, too, because most animals tend to seek food and sex when they are "happy," or at least in a state of reward-expectation.

Your puppy analogy is cute. But why did God make us like puppies instead of like angels? If there is some higher perspective, why aren't we made so we can handle it? And if life is a precious gift, there are an awful lot of people wasting it, throwing it away, and taking it away from others. And in places where there are endemic diseases, people die like flies.

And then there is the "learning lab," idea of existence. A lot of Americans seem to believe that one. If we are here to learn, then why is it that dementia can (and often does) take away everything one learns in this life. There are plenty of people who leave this world in the same state they can in.

Sorry to be "Devil's Advocate," but somebody has to do it.

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black sheep (Guest) 2006-06-21, 11:50 #4

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"Why are we here, and why is God absent?"

Why we are here, I don't think we can ever find out during our lifetimes ... unless something phenomenal happens, like a NASA deep space probe running into Heaven's front lawn, as an example (and admittedly, a very geocentric example). Our situation is like that of a goldfish in a bowl in someone's living room, trying to ascertain through observation, meditation or prayer what the heck it's doing swimming it's life away on someone's bookshelf.

Now as for why God is absent, I would like to ask: IS God absent? What does it mean for God to be 'present', anyway? Does it mean seeing an awesome vision of a bearded guy in a flowing white robe? Or maybe a prophet that can perform true miracles and unequivocally convince EVERYONE on Earth that he or she represents God? Drawing on the blind chihuahua symbol of this web site, why assume that God is absent just because our vision is poor?

Personally, I believe that fear-based religions like Christianity - Do what the Boss says, or you gonna pay! - actually make it harder to 'see' God, because they define God in an unrealistic and unnatural way. I found this web site by googling my way to the excellent essay "Leviathan, Inc.", and I find that the problem of "managerial arrogance" described there is rampant within large religious organizations, as well as in corporations. Because followers of a faith have to conform to acceptable behaviors in order to be welcome within the institution, honesty is an automatic casualty, as it is in the corporate world. The mafia-like phrase at the start of this paragraph (about listening to the Boss) applies in both cases.

Carrying on with the corporate comparison, the near elimination of American Indian spirituality by Christian organizations could be compared to small, local businesses that have been wiped out by the likes of Walmart, Chapters etc. Small businesses tend to value people, instead of treating them like small, replaceable parts in a big machine. Do you think that the American natives of three hundred years ago felt that God was absent? They were savages practicing animism, you may say, but keep in mind how our 'civilisation' of today will be seen a thousand years from now. Just because the past is behind us doen't mean we know very much of all that there is to know ... and maybe it's even less than those 'savages'.

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Phil 2006-08-04, 19:38 #5

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So here is a tough one for you. Why are we here, and why is God absent?

I've been through the whole mill.

Raised as a catholic and indoctrinated
sin you go to hell fear, jesus was crucified to save YOU guilt, God watches over you security
RESULT: Prayed to God every night that I wouldn't go to hell and he would protect me.

Then agnosticism/atheism, logical thought and embrace of the scientific world view
We are all just particles thrown together for eighty years or so, love is just evolutionary design, no big PURPOSE to life, we are nothing.
RESULT: Sterile world view, feelings of hopelesness, pointlessness.

Exploration of mysticism/meditation
Everything is connected, quantum physics says everything is just pliable energy, what I see is maya illusion, the universe is one big flow, don't be attached, consciousness is ground of reality.
RESULT: Detached, cold, everything is a dream, transcedent, but life still pointless

My new thing I'm into is Jeremy Griffiths 'Integrative Meaning'
Griffith says the purpose of life is holism - for the tendency of things to form greater and more complex holes. Nothing supernatural about this - it's due to the laws of physics, in particular negative entropy. Griffith says that the metaphysical term 'God' refers to the law of negative entropy. Science is reductionist and wont acknowlege this (despite that fact that all around us are things made of a heirachy of existence). This supports my gut feeling that when life seems to matter to me most, when it has meaning, is when I feel a part of something bigger.
RESULT: To be confirmed

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Wings 2008-03-11, 04:45 #6

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Subject: "I probably shoudn't be here, but this was the only Universe with a Vacancy" granny from hell

It Is a Big question you poise...Once in meditation Spirt whispered "you are the Desire of God made manifest" well !that was new one on me ,me who's battle cry at age 5 until 15 was "I did not asked to be born !" but it seems like a great reson to be here. and I have poured that passion in to a lifes work (I'm an artist) used it to recover from Alcholism and related mental illness; gave it to 3 husbands,two children,friends lovers employers and homes I never owned and tryed to bloom where I was planted...can't say God is ever relly absent I however can be very absent. Zucour writes about this in his "Seat of the Soul" But I never have any luck in getting God to keep appointments on my time...but if I show up faithfully I become more sensative to the everpresent sacredness of life ...and more easily except the small encounters and kindnesses that make up my ministry.