Inability to Reconcile

[murray t turtle]

I'm no longer religious. I used to be. I was born Catholic and though I was never what one would call "devout", I still attended church from time to time (of course on the holidays!) and I had what I would call a healthy belief in God. The God from the Bible, or the Catholic religion.

Then I watched a video a few years back that truly explained the massive and unfathomable size of the universe. I've always been a Sci-fi and Astronomy fan, so this video was right up the alley. I'll post the video at the end of this text.

I was dumbfounded at the sheer size of the universe. Yeah, I always knew it was massive but I don't think I truly grasped the concept of just how massive it is. What's more, I don't think I actually gave conscious thought to the size of the universe and how it related to the overall concept of the Bible and God that I had faith in. And that's what led me down the path of discord. O' Discordia... (for ye Dark Tower fans)

And it is discord. My life seems like it lacks the harmony I once had. I cannot reconcile the God of the Bible with the concept of such a massive universe. They seem to me to be incompatible. I cannot develop a theory as to how the two possibilities can co-exist in a logical format. For example, if God has chosen us and we are in his image, am I to assume there are no other examples of us anywhere in the universe? Given the billions and billions of possible homes of life in our own galaxy or even in our local group, how does God, the story of Moses, Jesus, anything in the Bible have any possibility of being even remotely true? Quite simply, they can't says I. Not that I believed them to be actual historical representation before, but now its nothing more than any other fiction I've ever read.

I'm curious if anyone else has ever had to go through this. As I get older - as we get older, I think it is natural to start to think about what the end of our time looks like and what it means to us. Perhaps that's what this is.

I've read the posts on this forum lurking quietly because I don't have a lot to add. I've tried to engage some of the posters here or in private messages, but I don't pretend to have the intelligence to understand what is going on or what they are talking about. I listen, I hear, but some of it I can't absorb or don't grasp. Other stuff simply doesn't ring with logic or truth.

%%
That's easy.
How else could you explain a star or our sun except by creation by God?? A mass of incandescent gas.
Faith is the title deed-Hebrews 11;1- Amplified Bible
The only reason some has not seen/accepted a title deed is because they don't want to.
Good question.................................................................................

 

[Tsing Tao]

%%
That's easy.
How else could you explain a star or our sun except by creation by God??

You are suggesting the answer of "how a star was created" can only be "by God, silly"?

 

[murray t turtle]

You are suggesting the answer of "how a star was created" can only be "by God, silly"?

%%
HUH?? Let see you do it/go.
Let us know when you do /LOL

 

[Good1]

This is the problem with following a book written by old men in Mesopotamia 3000 or so years ago after licking toads.

I doubt any of the priest class ( that published and maintained the legacy liturgical lore mostly associated with the Hebrew race) ever ingested the venom of the Sonoran toad. Otherwise their theology could have been much better, and more useful to those who actually want to know whats going on.

An atheist once tried inhaling Sonoran (only found in the Sonoran desert) toad venom ( that is usually prepared by crystalizing into a dust that is vaporized), and lived to write an entire book called "Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad" . No longer atheist, he agrees with the slang term for the substance "The God particle", but is not at all in line with the legacy media (biblical liturgical lore). The author describes recreational use of many other kinds of substances enough to credibly describe the unique difference in the "God particle", the main feature being the temporary loss of "ego". Beyond the ego there is a "Self" which exists that mere words have trouble describing, as words are alien to that Self. That Self is equal to or higher (beyond) any "God" that words can describe. It knows all there is to know and exists in a state of bliss. While it may be a self it is sufficiently alien from any ego that it can be frightening to an ego.

I have noticed that egos that have been frightened by the discovery of the true Self may retreat behind the protective walls of some egotistic religion like the legacy lore of the Hebrew priest class. The pendulum swings the other way for a while (thousands of years?) till they can get courage again . Probably why Jesus said, "fear not".

The author of Triptamine Palace is notably fearless. His attempts to describe what it all means do not come to the level of detail that i often provide, but we would be more aligned than i am with any of the neo-Judeo sects that go by the title "Christan". Many frightened egos are hiding behind the bible which doesnt cover much more than a fig leaf. You can tell how scared they are by the volume of "scripture" they quote in response to simple challenges.

The natural venom (defensive deterent) of the frog has since, only in recent years, been added to a classified list making it illegal unless distributed in a "religious" context kind of like Peyote. In Mexico it is allowed to be distributed by some kind of doctor(?) who offers it to people addicted to to meth and/or opioids who, like himself, often recieve complete release from the addiction in one experience.

No, i believe the Hebrew priest class is/was motivated by the proven formula that a certain type of religion is useful for controlling the largest number of people with the smallest police force by imbibing fear of a certain type of god i call "ego". The book of "Numbers" would be an accounting of how successful they had been to date.

That control is reflected in the kind of modern governments who make natural medicines illegal, but with the aid of a larger police force because modern governments dont use the god card as much.

This is the subtle difference between priest-craft and state-craft.

 

[murray t turtle]

Hello Tsing Tao beer.

I also don't comprehend.

Talk about the bible. How did people manage to capture sooo many details about what happened hundreds of generations ago?
How did they manage to document so many details?.......

Astrologist says there are billions of stars in the universe.
Surely there is life out there.

%%
Because the same LORD God that created the stars; had a hand in the Bible.
Hint; can you explain why a star could work/burn @ all?? A mass of gas!!
Hint , i scrapped some freon gas cans + guess what happened when i turned the nozzle on/you quessed i/all the gas went away. Gas heat is dangereous because the gas can go places you do not want it.
SO really we cant even explain that small part of creation apart from God ;good question.

 

[Good1]

%%
Because the same LORD God that created the stars; had a hand in the Bible.
Hint; can you explain why a star could work/burn @ all?? A mass of gas!!
Hint , i scrapped some freon gas cans + guess what happened when i turned the nozzle on/you quessed i/all the gas went away. Gas heat is dangereous because the gas can go places you do not want it.
SO really we cant even explain that small part of creation apart from God ;good question.

Probably the star god and the bible god are the same dramatic character. Ive often said the god of the bible is the god of this world.

As for the making of the stars they are made by faith...the faith of the god which makes them. If faith can be understood, then the making of the stars can be understood.

Beyond the god that believes (makes things through faith) is a Good which knows everything, and believes (has faith in) nothing.

Stars, as such, are fake light/knowledge. I mean that knowledge is the true light, and gas-light is reresentative of faith. You can learn something true from knowledge, but cant ever really learn anything from faith. Faith pretends to shed light on whatever subject. But it is always gaslighting.

Anyone who depends on faith for his "knowledge" will be tied to the fate of the "light" he depends on. You can depend on faith for a long time but will eventually be subsumed in a lake of fire as the gas light explodes, implodes, or otherwise causes your destruction.

"Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that's seen in abusive relationships. It's the act of manipulating a person by forcing them to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them. A victim of gaslighting can be pushed so far that they question their own sanity." ~ the internet

 

[murray t turtle]

Probably the star God and the bible God are the same dramatic character.

As for the making of the stars they are made by faith...the faith of the God which makes them. If faith can be understood, then the making of the stars can be understood.

%%
Thats what miracles are. Faith is the title deed=Hebrews11;1.Good thing about sunlight/electric light/dont have to sit in the dark..................................................................................

 

[CaptainObvious]

The universe is too big, cold and indifferent for a God to exist, and mankind is too small, frightened and uncertain to live without one. One day we'll all know the truth...or not.

 

[tomorton]

Its very hard if you're not a member of an organised religion to justify joining one. And if you are a member, its very hard to justify leaving it and joining another.

Joining Christianity seems easy and calls for little personal sacrifice. You have to avoid doing immoral things like killing people. Entry is unrestricted but failure to join or failure to obey the religion's codes leads to eternal physical torture. Is this not naked coercion, with serious threats of the most terrible violence imaginable? It doesn't seem very moral.

 

[Good1]

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Thats what miracles are. Faith is the title deed=Hebrews11;1.Good thing about sunlight/electric light/dont have to sit in the dark..................................................................................

Faith is greatly misunderstood, not just by you, or the anonymous scribe of a theological legal thesis engineered for Hebrew consumption. Faith will be lauded, until one wakes up and realizes just how damaging it is to mental health on a macro scale.

The book of Hebrews is actually more akin to a grimoire of magic spells. The actual gospel, it's purpose, is to dispel, or otherwise banish, the spells that faith casts upon any mind foolish enough to think that faith offers something to gain.

Stars are made by magic, just another term to describe faith.

Magic and miracles are mutually exclusive. Magic initiates eventual damnation, and prolongs the damnation, while miracles function to reverse the effects of magic upon one's mind. It would indeed be a miracle, if anyone identifying as a Judeo(Hebrew)-Christian ever agreed with me.

The spells of magic will eventually be completely undone by the go-spells (go away, banishment) of miracles. That will invoke the end of time, a strange twilight zone within which stars (and everything that depends upon them) seem to shine. As miracles finish their function, stars will simply disappear, back to the void of nothingness (magical basis) from which they arise.

"Let there be light!". If this means let there be gaseous fireballs and ticking time-bombs in the sky, well, that is a good example of a magical spell. It is only lacking the finishing touch, "So mote it be". However, "...it is good" substitutes for an equally audacious proclamation by fiat.

The real magic trick is to get minds to believe the eventual exploding gaseous fireballs are actually any kind of "light". Nobody ever, nor will anybody ever, learn anything about the actual Good, from a burning ball of butane. Good exists in the light of knowledge, mainly, the knowledge of thy Self.

Till then, any world lit by the gaslight will remain dark, very dark indeed.