"Then God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth..." (Genesis 1:26).



image AND likeness,,, nothing about duplication or reflexion(which is more exact than LIKENESS)

how many times is the word "duplication" used in the bible ....duplication most likely wasn't a term highly used in those biblical days ...which is why God used the term image

Hey, now ... ... It takes alotta dust to make clay ...

The Japanese have a fantastic saying, one of my top 5:

"IF you would KNOW clay?

You would KNOW ALL things ..."

So Deep ... Pun simultaneously intended, and not relevant ...

Respectfully, I happen to work w/ clay a great deal; in this manner, I very much create from dust ...


Creation's Created emulating/mimicking Creative Source Creativity Abilities ...


Also, it follows, then ... From whence comes design, music, art, poetry, math, science, language ...


Channeled CREATIVITY ... Creative Progeny ... Begat ... Begat ...

Acute observations. Of course you realize that six hundred years ago you'd have burnt at the stakes for saying something like that.

I agree with the first part, that we don't look like His image, physcially; for instance, humans are not occupying the entire expanse of physical and geometrical three-dimensional space, which God does. (Omnipresent.)

I say we have to be careful with the second part. In the second part you state that perhaps our nature is similar to that of God.

Hm. On one hand, He could have referred to a set of qualities which we, humans, don't know yet, even though we possess them. On the other hand, God only talks about His own nature when he says "I am a mean and jealous God". He says nothing more about himself, his motivating emotions, his desires, his sorrows, his regrets. At least nothing that I know of. I willingly stand corrected if shown in Bible passages that I am wrong.

So what else do we know about His nature? He abused His own son, He had Him tortured, and then made die a horrible death.

What else do we know about Him? He is not very consistent in following up with His promises. He let the Holocaust happen, for one thing. Generally He does not show consistency in this world by way of punishing the guilty and rewarding the righteous.

What else do we know about Him? He is not a very clear speaker. The Books He inspired are not clear-cut texts, they contain concepts and wordings that are screaming out for interpretation.

He is not a logical unit. He put down screamingly obvious self-contradictions in His Books, that are not possible to happen.

If He is a logical unit, then He is a good psychologist, because He can make people strongly believe the impossible.

----------------

Where do people get the ideas in the scriptures, that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, that He sees everything, that His knowledge is infinite? Are there words to those effects, and coming from the lips of Jesus, as recorded in the Holy Book as direct quotes that Jesus uttered?

Well I recently found and quoted this excerpt on "The Nature of God" from jewfaq.org - and it answers some of these questions:

http://www.jewfaq.org/g-d.htm

Since Jesus was jewish then he also had these views.

Jesus never mentioned anything about wanting to become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, or that every knee will bow to him, and that every tongue will confess that he is Lord.

In fact, that doesn't even sound like the type of attitude that Jesus would even condone.

But unfortunately someone else did write it and it became part of the Biblical cannon.

OK, here it is:

Rom.14
[11] For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

Paul wrote it in Romans. But he was referring to a previous author from the Old Testament, Isaiah:

Isa.45
[23] I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Paul was simply taking the stuff from the Old Testament and showing it down the throat of Jesus.

This is what I mean about Jesus becoming entangled with the Old Testament. These authors (Paul especially) used Jesus as a patsy to dredge up stuff from the Old Testament in Jesus' name.

The problem is that since he dredged it up and wrote it down, and it got allowed into the Biblical Cannon, now it is actually SEEN as the Holy Word of Jesus, when in fact Jesus himself never even alluded to any such thing.

This is one of the greatest things that turns me off to the whole mythology. It's not really about Jesus at all. It's far more about all the hearsay crap that other authors pushed in Jesus' name.

This is an interesting view, and it certainly sounds quite pantheistic, yet at the same time the Biblical writings don't sound very pantheistic.

For example:

G-d is One
One of the primary expressions of Jewish faith, recited twice daily in prayer, is the Shema, which begins "Hear, Israel: The L-rd is our G-d, The L-rd is one." This simple statement encompasses several different ideas:

1. There is only one G-d. No other being participated in the work of creation.

2. G-d is a unity. He is a single, whole, complete indivisible entity. He cannot be divided into parts or described by attributes. Any attempt to ascribe attributes to G-d is merely man's imperfect attempt to understand the infinite.

3. G-d is the only being to whom we should offer praise. The Shema can also be translated as "The L-rd is our G-d, The L-rd alone," meaning that no other is our G-d, and we should not pray to any other.

It seems like #'s 1 & 2 are in conflict with #3.

In other words, if God is unity and complete and whole, and cannot be divided into parts, then obviously we must be God.

So who is this "being" in #3 that we are supposed to be praising?

Our very own Higher Self?

More to the point, if we aren't "God" then WHO are we?

I can understand the Eastern Mystical view of "god" because they understand the idea that we are god, "Tat T'vam Asi", and that what happens is that we lose sight of this by being fooled by illusion that we are indeed seperate "individual egos". But that's just an illusion. There is no 'reality' to the 'ego'. It's just an illusion. Thus when it's all said and done, every concious being must necessarily 'return' to the ultimate state of being, which is the only concious being that exists (i.e. God) As per #'s 1 & 2 above.

In other words, in a pantheistic view of reality it would be impossible to become permanently seperated from "God" because ultimate we were never seperate from "God" to begin with.

However, we CAN become temporarly "seperated" from God by illusion! In other words, we can be tricked momentarily (where momentarily could be an entire lifetime) into believing that we are NOT God.

But there can never be any reality to that belief in a pantheistic view of "God" because there is nothing else to be BUT God. There just isn't anything else to be.

So if that's the case, then how does Judaism differ from Eastern Mysthicism? And if it doesn't differ from it, then why aren't the religious scholars working hard to make it known to the rest of the world that there is no difference between Judaism and Pantheism (or Eastern Mysticism).

Why keep these spiritual philosophies seperate if they are indeed the same.

Also, if the Bible is seen as the "Word of God" in this picture simply because it was supposedly written by men who were spiritually inspired, then why not also recognize the spiritually inspired teachings of Buddha to be precisely as valid, etc.

There should be no reason for the Jews to put the Torah before any other spiritual work if they truly believe in a pantheistic God.

there does not seem to be any contradiction at all between the
philosophy of eastern religions and judaism imho.

since god is one and all encompassing in judaism, then it is
quite natural. if we are a part of god then why praise you ask?

it is an interesting question and i think the answer to it is
that praise in prayer means the aspiration toward perfection and
this is a very very powerful concept. really.

it is the ultimate "positive visualization" and is at the basis
of many faith systems but particularly in this caae judaism.
not at all unlike siddhartha.

now #3 is not at all in conflict with #1 and #2. god is viewed as
the sum of perfection.

also, the STUDY of the Torah is revered. judaism DEMANDS that the
Torah (Old Testament) be interpreted and not be taken literally
and it is through the interpretation and exploration of it and
it's various inconsistencies and parables which is the path to
enlightenment in judaism. this is fine - all the important issues
are dealt with as long as it is openly and critically discussed
the OT is as good as any...perhaps one can argue it has shown to
be very effective over the centuries and even millenia.

note the emphasis on the word STUDY - these studies include
innumerable discusssions and opinions and the studies have never concluded!



it is admirable and consistent with eastern philosophy, religion and teachings.

exactly

------------------------
Torah (Old Testament) be interpreted and not be taken literally
and it is through the interpretation and exploration of it and
it's various inconsistencies and parables which is the path to
enlightenment in judaism. this is fine
-------------------------

Jesus spoke in parables to make it more understandable to us and we could relate to it more. Makes more of an impression that way and deeper thought of the subject the if he was to tell us cut and dry what to do and what not to do.

The new testament is written the same way to have the same effect.

And for the mention of various inconsistencies, there are NONE!!!. Not one person has been able to give me an inconsistency or conflict of any way with just particularly old testament or new testament. Yes of course their would be inconsistancies a little comparing the two with each othrer, because they are two totally different sets of laws for us. So of course they are going to be different from one another.

Where does the idea that God represent perfection come from?

It's pretty clear that the world is not perfect. And this is most certainly not due to the existence of mankind. The world is far from perfect even if mankind is taken completely out of the picture.

It's a dog-eat-dog world. Nature devours herself with complete abandon and disregard for life. Animals eat other animals, microbes infect animals as disease and kill their host. Even the natural elements are often hostile and quite disasterous toward life.

So where does the ideology of "perfection" come in?

What is it that is supposed to be so perfect about this God?

If God doesn't respect life in the very design of nature, then why should we, as humans, respect life?

I'm just asking.

Aren't we basically exhibiting more compassion than God for even wanting to aspire to perfection?

Where's the perfection in God's creation?

That's how the world was made to operate and works very sufficiently.

A plant is grown, an animal eats that plant and absorbs it's nutrients, a bigger animal eats that animal and absorbs it's nutrients, that animal dies and it's nutrients get passed on into the ground for a plant to suck up.

And among many other different variant examples i could provide.

"If God doesn't respect life in the very design of nature, then why should we, as humans, respect life?"

How does God not respect life in the very design of nature? Nature is designed for the smaller prey to be eat'n to make the predator stronger. And God is perfect because of many qualities including;

- never ending love
- Compassionate
- Forgiving
- Provider
- Never lies

And so much more. God provides us with everything and anything we could ever need. What more could you ask for?

About God and "perfection".

There are many references to god having all good attributes and being the opposite of evil - i.e. the perfect good. This is well understood and codified. This is the essence of speaking of god as "holy" or "the holy ONE" etc. etc. "Holiness" being synonymous with perfection.

There have been extensive philosophical treatises which deal with all the common issues see for example Moses Maimonides who lived nearly a thousand years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Maimonides

Now you raise the question "how can god be perfect when there is imperfection in the world?" Of course this is a different question
from "how is god viewed as perfect or described as perfect in the bible?"

But both questions were addressed even in antiquity.

Here it is recapitulated ad-nauseum:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/

I think you would understand the distinctions and arguments easily enough. Religion is essentially philosophy. There is no need to reinvent your own. It has all already been figured out previously!



http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1774&letter=A&search=aristotle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_philosophy



that is not to say that one doesn't learn new things everyday!!

Well, that may be true for you as an individual, but clearly it isn't true for many people.

There are many people who are born with quite serious and even painful birth defects. There are many people who die young and in pain because of these birth defects. Notice that "defects" does not equate to "perfection". Nor does it equate to having everything you could ever need.

I could go on and on in the same way about diseases, or being harmed or seriously maimed by an animal (even another human animal such as a rapist or whatever), but any animal will do.

So I simply don't see your ideology that God provides us with everything and anything we could ever need. As far as I'm concerned that's just overly optimistic wishful thinking on your part that simply holds no water in reality.

You're just making arbitrary idealized statement as if they should be accpted as "truth" when in fact, reality does not exhibit the characteristics that your ideology demands.

I'll try to find time today to read over some of these philosophies. In general I do tend to like the philosophies that you point to. However, I don't always agree with them in detail.

You say, "There is no need to reinvent your own philosophy", but doesn't that assume that I can actually find one that I already agree with in every detail.

If that were true of everyone, then philosophy would be a dead field and there would be no need to further consider it.

However, what is usually the truth is that it is extremely rare to find even two individuals who will agree on every single detail of anything.

A philosophy that makes the claim that God is somehow "perfect" must itself be a "perfect" philosophy. If it has a single flaw, then how can it be said to be describing 'perfection'?

If I take the time to read the philosophies you've pointed to I can just about guarantee that I will come back with disagreement on some of the points that they are attempting to me. This is not because I love to argue and disagree with people, but it is simply due to the fact that I will honestly find things in the philosophy that I sincerely disgree with.

So to suggest to me that I don't need to "reinvent the Philosophy" presumes that I should be able to find one that already satisfies my every concern completely. Thus far I have never been able to find such a philosophy.

Easetern Mysticism is the closest philosophy I've found to "perfection" in terms of philosophy. However, that's because in this philosophy God itself it not necesarily claimed to be "perfect", especially not in HUMAN TERMS.

In other words, they do claim that "god" is perfect in "essence". But that does NOT mean that "god" is perfect in terms of what we as humans consider to be MORAL.

In this sense it is indeed possible to be more "highly moral" than "god" because the very CONCEPT of human morality doesn't even apply to God at all.

But this does beg the question of why it should then be 'wrong' for a human to kill another human. Clearly God does not see it as being 'wrong' if a lion attacks a human and kills them. That's perfectly acceptable to "god". So why should it then be wrong for a human to kill another human? Just because they should "know better"?

But isn't that the WHOLE QUESTION?

Why should they "know better", if their only example of "God" is indeed the universe around them and the universe around them is indeed dog-eat-dog?

I confess that the single most problematic issue I have with a supposedly "intelligent conscious creator" is the very fact that the world is naturally dog-eat-dog even when man is taken entirely out of the picture. In this sense the world is inherently 'evil' by "human standards of morality".

So if I'm going to consider a "God" in terms of "morality" I cannot ignore the dog-eat-dog nature of the natural world.

This single facet of the world is indeed the main thing that keeps me open to the posibility that atheism might actually be true after all. Because if the universe was created by a sentient being, then why is it naturally dog-eat-dog?

I'll try to read the philosophies you've pointed to and see if they address this specific question. If they do address it in a way that I find acceptable I'll be thrilled to hear it. However, I find that possibility to be extremely unlikely. More than likely they will either side-step the issue, or give some superficial hand-waving argument for it that I simply won't find the least bit satisfying.

Like I say, Eastern Mysticism gives the best explanation thus far, IMHO. However, in that philosophy, "god" does not necessarily have higher 'morals' than humans. Human morality is purely a human construct and nothing else. Well, it's more far complicated than that actually. But the bottom line is that "god" does not need to have any "morality" at all in this picture because for "god" the concept is meaningless. It's only "meaningful" for humans. And thus humans have to deal with "morality" on their own. They can't be pointing to "god" as an "example" of "Perfect morality"

They are given reasons why a human should want to achieve a perfect sense of "human morality" in order to get closer to "god" though, and they explain that through various concepts such as 'karma' etc.

But in this sense "god" is not "limited" to human morality. Human morality does not even APPLY to "god" at all.

Well, thanks for making me type all that out.

Rehashing this makes me appreciate the wisdom of Eastern Mysticism all the more.

I'll go read the philosophy of Moses Maimonides and see what he's saying.

Ok, Slow, this didn't take long at all.

According to the Wiki link you gave Moses Maimonides deals with the problem of evil in much the same way as Aristotel. This is an brief summary give by the Wiki of Maimonides position on the problem of "evil".



Well, after reading this I really have absolutely no desire to read any deeper into Maimonides' work. He is somehow associating "evil" with a freedom of choice regarding a rejection of a belief in god.

As far as I'm concerned that's totally invalid and cannot be true. The reason being that as humans, what we consider to be 'evil' goes far beyond men. A dog-eat-dog universe already contains 'evil' as far as human morals are concerned.

So I'm already grossly turned off by Maimonides' views here.

Eastern mysticism does not equate 'evil' with any rejection of 'god'. In fact, they basically reject the very notion of 'evil' altogther and recognize that the very concept is a human construct it's NOT innate to nature.

In fact, if we consider a dog-eat-dog world to be 'evil' then the universe would necessarily contain 'evil'. There's no getting around it. This is why the Eastern Mystics recognized that this sort of judgemental moral ideology cannot be of 'god' but must necessarily be a human construct.

So they deal with it in an entirely different way.

But I do thank you for this interaction because having thought about these issues up-close like this has indeed helped me to see an even deeper wisdom in Eastern Mysticism.

I think my real problem is that since I was born and raised into the Abrahamic picture of God it's difficult for me to abandon those concepts altogether and fully embrace the Eastern Mystic view. But now I think I may indeed be able to embrace them more fully with better understanding.

With the Abrahamic picture "god" must necessarily be responsible for the 'dog-eat-dog' nature of the world. But in that Eastern Mysic picture that responsiblity vanishes. And that is the KEY to it right there.

You're thinking with an earthly state of mind. Perfection doesn't have anything to do with our physical structure. That's temporary and is only used for so much time and is destroyed or healed by the enviroment we live in. Our bodies are not "us", is only a vessel for our souls.

Hi James Sorry about that!



When I said you don't need to reivent your own it was not to
imply that there was no possibility of new growth. Just that
there are vast existing frameworks.



This is simply not true. We can visualize an ideal apple and even describe
it imperfectly and it is still a perfect apple - just switch god for
apple.



I think the same can be said of western religions. God transcends what
we can understand so although there are prescriptions for living an
ethical life - rules which are continously refined through study and
introspection - none of this applies to God in western religions. This
does not mean God is bad but rather that God is inscrutable in detail.
Not much different from the eastern viewpoint on the subject.

Ahh - Thou shalt not kill. Why? I think you already know better.



Yes - It is because we can understand some of the ramifications which
another animal cannot. The example is a God which values life and
exemplifies ultimate kindness.

Because there is evil in the world, this does not imply that the world
itself is evil. See the reference I gave on theodicy above.

Maimonides? Remember he lived a millenium ago...I was merely pointing
out that he along with Aristotle and others were tackling these issues
even back then. Has to be interesting though. For a long time I had
a quote on perfect friendship by Aristotle in my profile here....

It has to be interesting though...

It matters not Cowboy. If we follow what you've just written above then we must conclude that to phyiscal kill someone does not even matter because you haven't killed their soul. So to physically murder an individual's physical body cannot possible be wrong because you haven't harmed a "soul".

As a pure philosophy it breaks down.

Of course I do. But clearly there are even situations where humans accept that killing is moral. So it's not always wrong.

Even in the Bible, "God himself" supposedly gave the Jews permission to wipe out an entire culture that was living on the "promised land".

Whether there is any truth to the fable or not is irrelevant. The fact is that humans accept that there are times when they are willing to 'morally justify' the killing of other humans. So even in their religious paradigm to not kill another human is not an absolute moral law. There are always acceptions when it doesn't hold.

However, I'm glad that we've exchanged these thoughts today. I've really gained a much deeper insight into what Eastern Mysticism is actually saying. I've always known that they teach that there is no such thing as 'evil' and that evil is a judgement. But I never fully understand the significance of that teaching until today.

The Abrahamic philosophy began under the naive notion that God created a "perfect" world, and then manking "fell from grace" bringing evil into the world (even though an "evil" Satan was required in the process). But that's because of how their story goes. They assumed that 'evil' is real and therefore they had to "invent" a source of 'evil'. They did it in two ways. One by "creating" a demonic influence (i.e. Satan), and two, by suggesting that mankind willfully chose to reject God in favor of being influenced by this 'evil' temptation.

This is why the whole religion is based on 'sin' and 'temptation' and can only work if all men are said to be sinners who have fallen into the trap of 'temptation'.

But that whole story assumes that 'evil' is real, and that mankind is somehow 'responsible' for it.

We know now that the world was dog-eat-dog long before mankind ever came onto the scene. So the whole tale of manking being repsonsible for bringing 'evil' into the world via his 'fall from grace' was a false ideology to begin with. Thus the entire Abrahamic philosophy falls. It's basic premises turn out to be false.

The Eastern Mystic philosophers recognized that what we deem to be 'evil' cannot truly be 'evil'. There can be no such thing as 'evil'. So they philosophy has no 'problem of evil' to deal with in the first place.

They recognize that the entire concept of 'evil' is a judgment and nothing more. But who is the judge? That is the question they had to grapple with. And when they ask, "Who is the Judge?", that forced them to turn inward and ask, "Who am I?"

And thus Eastern Mysticism was born and became a very deep philosophy that is entirely based on that latter question.

And that's is how the question of evil must ultimately be addresses.

Looking to an 'extrernal' supposedly 'perfect God' and viewing mankind as being compeltely seperate from that perfect God, cannot solve the problem of 'evil'. Especially not in a dog-eat-dog universe.

If it could somehow be shown that there was no such thing as 'evil' outside of the actions of men, then the Abrahamic picture of mankind falling from grace from some perfect judgemental God may have indeed been a legitimate philosophy of the world.

But since that's not the case, then that philosophy cannot be true.