360 names for God

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The money I put in the collection plate isn't for God-- it's for the church community.

Charity, Community, Altruism ...


If you're hopelessly bitter and deeply misanthropic, these concepts go right by you.

I find it fascinating that he only view of church operations indicated in my remark on the power of religion refers to a few local congregations. As if thousands of years of church and other religious financial and power influence simply hasn't existed.

Don't let your feelings about religion cloud your vision. God is a central theme to many people. Politics capitalizes on ideas, fears, desires, etc, but that is not the point. Religion is just a form of politics. If God is at the center then there are many perceptions which see the creator from different angles.

I'm talking about the idea of deities being a commonality that is universal to humanity. Something that occurs in the psyche that is an archetype and is described as being "more real than real" may very likely be something real. How could people from all over the world for the past 4,000 years experience the same "delusion"? If it is a delusion then I think we should be exploring the nature of hallucinations that alter our behavior so dramatically. How can people from all cultures claim to experience a divine love?
Sure some people never experience love, but I doubt that love doesn't exist just because he/she doesn't experience it.

Well-said!

I was not talking about the personal relationships that people conjure up between themselves and imaginary beings, I was speaking about religion as a social force that created the Crusades with its vandalism and rape and murder, that persecuted the Jews for centuries all across Europe and set the stage for the Holocaust, that evicted the Jews from Spain in 1492, that created the monster Torquemada that tortured people and burned books, that burned Joan of Arc and Bruno, that chased the Puritans out of Europe to North America, that tortured and killed people accused of witchcraft in New England (and is still doing so in Africa), that created the alliance between the Vatican and Franco that tortured and murdered people for decades, that encouraged fanatics to murder doctors for attempting to help women with abortions, that forbade the use of condoms so that wives would become infected with HIV by their infected husbands, that gathered and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a campaign to prevent gay couple in California from getting married, that superstitiously is fighting the modern scientific foundation of evolution that is the basis of modern biology - just to mention a few things. There is, of course, a great deal more.

Politics corrupt people, not God.

how's this grab you;

"imaginary"?

Near death experiences would also be considered to be imaginary.

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html#a1

According to the Bible, God almost kidded Abraham into murdering his son. That is until He said, in effect, "Hey, Abe, it was all a joke."

Moses was a prophet. Regular people don't get tested like that. People who know Faith can understand the story.
Spiritual people have their faith tested and their inner moral compass directs them to know the truth which is personal.
This is what brings us closer to God and out of the animal senses. It's a way for us to learn how to realize our spiritual potential and discover our soul.

I'm not trying to convert anybody, just mentioning some the facts of the history of religion. You have to make up your own mind as to whether they are acceptable or not.

humans don't even know them all
so many have been lost and forgotten in our 2 million year existance as homo sapians, though even before that-as whatever they call us

Ancient cave painting depict supernatural forms. If you examine cave paintings around the world there are some common themes such as snake figures. On a side note, Neanderthals are believed to have buried their dead in a ritualistic way which seems to point that they also believed in an afterlife. Who knows how much information on deities has been lost.

Which indicates a psychological tendency, not a verifiable fact of the universe.

A psychological tendency which is commonplace amongst all cultures doesn't interest you? Who cares if it seems like a delusion.
The fact that so many people view it as more real than real should hold enough merit to warrant some serious scientific research.

The fact that "scientists" are so averse to study it "God" as a real phenomenon is enough to make it all the more interesting in my book.

There is no known way to research the existence or non-existence of a being accredited with total omniscience and powers to violate all known natural laws. Scientists can only observe natural phenomena and discover which ones indicate underlying laws that control how matter and energy interact. Since science is an ongoing study there are some phenomena that do not fit into the present knowledge of the scheme of things. But science can only exist if it presumes that eventually those unresolved phenomena will be understood. Religion is eager to present that unresolved phenomena exist and therefore lay their unsubstantiated claim that these phenomena will always remain unresolved and offer it as a permanent form of ignorance that is beyond mankind's capability to incorporate into the total body of known and understood phenomena. They are, in effect, delighted with their own ignorance and I find this attitude unacceptable.

It is one of the standard ploys of religion to establish divine laws that impose guilt upon people not obeying them and by doing this religious powers eternally put their subjects into debt to the established religion and can extract money and obedience from its adherents for the violation of these presumed divine laws for performing many of the normal functions of a human being which are necessary for existence. This I find oppressive and inexcusable.

There are strange and unacceptable inconsistencies in positing an all powerful totally omniscient being if the Bible is to be taken literally. My previously mentioned nasty "testing" of Abraham and the story of the horrible bet between God and Satan in the matter of Job is not reconcilable with a being who was aware of the outcome beforehand and can only be an indication of a very sadistic superbeing. The stories of the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden simply does not fit with a being that was aware of outcomes beforehand. A being of these powers is totally inconsistent and can only be the result of a defective imagination.

Last edited by Sand on 09 Jan 2009, 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.