There's probably no God...

[Doc Stier]

Nice thoughts, Walter. Thanks for sharing.

The following lyrics to Sting's song When The Angels Fall from the Soul Cages Album are undoubtedly more moving when heard with the beautiful music he wrote to accompany them, but even standing alone they speak a thought provoking message:

"So high above the world tonight
The angels watch us sleeping
And underneath a bridge of stars
We dream in safety's keeping
But perhaps the dream is dreaming us
Soaring with the seagulls
But perhaps the dream is dreaming us
Astride the backs of eagles
When the angels fall
Shadows on the wall
In the thunder's call
Something haunts us all
When the angels fall
When the angels fall"

http://www.last.fm/music/Sting/_/When+the+Angels+Fall



Doc

[Chris Fleming]

I was thinking about this sort of thing, the subject of this thread all the way back to the beginning of it: the advertisement that said to enjoy life. Why don't you just go out and enjoy life?

Life certainly should be enjoyed but I started thinking about King Solomon in the Old Testament. Here was a man who certainly did enjoy life. Lets look at this:

--He was a king, having the highest position of power in a country.
--He had the highest wisdom. He could speak clearly on any matter and on what life is about. People would travel from all around to hear from him. You could say that the modern equivalent would be having the highest and best education or being some kind of modern day Confucius.
--He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I'd say all his physical pleasures and sexual desires were more than fulfilled.
--Wealth was no object. There's a verse which says something like silver was like nothing, like stones on the ground. He had more gold and silver than he could possibly spend, hence, superlatively wealthy, even beyond today's Donald Trumps and other billionaires.

We can also go further and look at things a little more abstractly.

--In having all those wives, concubines, and wealth, he was going against what the law already had said about how a king should be, so in essence, he was living by his own philosophy, morals, and views.
--For a time he also did not serve the God of his father and ancestors, thus also showing that he was living in a freedom of mind, living by his choice of philosophy, view, etc.

Now, the question is, what is the result? Having LITERALLY accomplished everything a man could ever want, being the highest authority and ruling over others, throwing off his old religion and taking on his own way and philosophy, having more money than he could ever spend, having gained LITERALLY everything and having experienced EVERYTHING his lusts could move him to experience, what did he say?

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

This is the reality of all men throughout the ages including the present day. When man doesn't have God, even the superlative of superlative of achievements, riches, accomplishments, pleasures, etc become vanity of vanities. Man is a vessel to contain God and is a vessel for God. Nothing else will satisfy.

[zenshiite]

^Word.

There's usually a void that people are trying to fulfill and there's only One that can fill it.

[TaoJoannes]

I was thinking about this sort of thing, the subject of this thread all the way back to the beginning of it: the advertisement that said to enjoy life. Why don't you just go out and enjoy life?

Life certainly should be enjoyed but I started thinking about King Solomon in the Old Testament. Here was a man who certainly did enjoy life. Lets look at this:

--He was a king, having the highest position of power in a country.
--He had the highest wisdom. He could speak clearly on any matter and on what life is about. People would travel from all around to hear from him. You could say that the modern equivalent would be having the highest and best education or being some kind of modern day Confucius.
--He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I'd say all his physical pleasures and sexual desires were more than fulfilled.
--Wealth was no object. There's a verse which says something like silver was like nothing, like stones on the ground. He had more gold and silver than he could possibly spend, hence, superlatively wealthy, even beyond today's Donald Trumps and other billionaires.

We can also go further and look at things a little more abstractly.

--In having all those wives, concubines, and wealth, he was going against what the law already had said about how a king should be, so in essence, he was living by his own philosophy, morals, and views.
--For a time he also did not serve the God of his father and ancestors, thus also showing that he was living in a freedom of mind, living by his choice of philosophy, view, etc.

Now, the question is, what is the result? Having LITERALLY accomplished everything a man could ever want, being the highest authority and ruling over others, throwing off his old religion and taking on his own way and philosophy, having more money than he could ever spend, having gained LITERALLY everything and having experienced EVERYTHING his lusts could move him to experience, what did he say?

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

This is the reality of all men throughout the ages including the present day. When man doesn't have God, even the superlative of superlative of achievements, riches, accomplishments, pleasures, etc become vanity of vanities. Man is a vessel to contain God and is a vessel for God. Nothing else will satisfy.

The thing with Solomon, though, is that his foreign concubines lead him into the worship of their native gods, and thus out of the favor of the God of Abraham.

This caused some problems for him, and the Jews in general.

[Ron Panunto]

This is the reality of all men throughout the ages including the present day. When man doesn't have God, even the superlative of superlative of achievements, riches, accomplishments, pleasures, etc become vanity of vanities. Man is a vessel to contain God and is a vessel for God. Nothing else will satisfy.

You've got it all ass backwards Chris. Atheists are by and large quite content with what they have since they know that all they can, and ever will have is in this one life. It is the theists who are not content with what their life on earth can provide to the point that they have to invent a god and an eternal afterlife so they can live forever - I mean jeez - talk about discontent!

[Ron Panunto]

There's usually a void that people are trying to fulfill and there's only One that can fill it.

That's funny. I don't know any atheists who have this void - only theists. What does that tell you? Think about it.

[TaoJoannes]

It is the theists who are not content with what their life on earth can provide to the point that they have to invent a god and an eternal afterlife so they can live forever - I mean jeez - talk about discontent!

That's sort of a dishonest statement. The aim of most spiritual pursuit is to improve your state in this world. Take a look at modern preachers like Joel Osteen for more on the specific Christian flavor of this concept. http://www.lakewood.cc/Pages/index.aspx

Also, Meditation and prayer are essentially the same thing. With prayer, though, you have some pretty profound visualization fodder tied into deep psychological rabbit-holes. You can do some amazing things with comparatively little effort, when you're in the right frame of mind.

What I'm saying is that you're taking a vast landscape of motivations, practices, benefits, cultures, ideas, philosophies, and personalities and reducing it to a one-dimensional cartoon boogeyman. Something like some bullshido troll calling all CMA chop-socky bullshit simply because they lack the sophistication to appreciate its value.

[Dmitri]

I think this guy at the end (at about 6:00) sums it all up very nicely:



(I also suggest watching, if you haven't seen this yet, all 8 parts from the beginning, in sequence. They're about 6-7 min each, but worth the time. Here's the first part, and the rest can be found in links on the right side.)

[Ron Panunto]

Also, Meditation and prayer are essentially the same thing.

I disagree. I meditate. I don't pray. I do agree that prying may lead one into a meditative state, but meditation does not lead one into praying, that is unless he is a theist.

[Chris Fleming]

"The thing with Solomon, though, is that his foreign concubines lead him into the worship of their native gods, and thus out of the favor of the God of Abraham."

Of course. The point I'm making is that he chose to do so of his own free will. He knew full well what the law said and who God is, yet, like the many pseudo--philosophers of today, he decided to do his own thing, make up his own rules, follow his own morals, etc. Like today's self professed "free thinker" and today's person who claims to be freed from so called stuffy spirituality, Solomon was just that, and lived "the good life" beyond the abilities of nearly anyone else before or since. He tried that road and came to the same conclusion that each person will eventually come to (whether they like it or not, whether they believe it or not): without God all is vanity, empty, pointless. Like Paul said later, apart from Christ, all is counted as refuse, dung. The sum total of all accomplishments outside of Christ equals ZERO. While on the flip side, Christ is rich to all who call upon Him.

[klonk]

Thing is, man is a worshiping creature. If he does not worship God, he is certain to worship something else. Some worship government and its promises of progress. This is why the awful socialist states of the last century discouraged religion. It distracted the people from worshiping them.

Lots of things you can worship. Some worship money. Or status, or sex, or rock stars. Some worship science, a dangerous path, because it yields just enough real answers to keep you interested. Some worship themselves; I'm sure we all know people like that.

Solomon was right. You can try everything under the sun and come up empty in the end.

As I read the matter, "under the sun" is a key phrase in understanding what Solomon is talking about. By this I take him to mean the world as we see it in the here and now, but he points, by implication, to something more.

[qiphlow]

the story of gautama buddha is the same: he had everything, gave it all up, even tried religion. and i guess most of us know what happened after that.

[affa]

mu.

[GrahamB]

I think this guy at the end (at about 6:00) sums it all up very nicely:



(I also suggest watching, if you haven't seen this yet, all 8 parts from the beginning, in sequence. They're about 6-7 min each, but worth the time. Here's the first part, and the rest can be found in links on the right side.)

Yeah, but that would only ever work on Americans

[Ian]

^Word.

There's usually a void that people are trying to fulfill and there's only One that can fill it.

I don't have a void, thanks.