Submitting to God’s will — as an atheist I finally get it! (mercy, Earth)
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I grew up in a conservative Lutheran (Missouri Synod) church and home. In college for a while I participated in a fundamentalist, born-again group. One of the things I could never understand was how do you submit to God’s will? How do you know the difference between God’s will, your will, your pastor’s will, and society’s will (conventional wisdom/what you “should” do)? Absolutely no one could tell me how to figure that out. At the most I got platitudes like: “You need to open your heart and mind to God and then you will know.” But I didn’t know. It was always a complete muddle.
Since I deconverted many years ago, I have become a deterministic atheist. That’s right — I don’t believe in free will. Or rather I believe that the experience of free will is a very strong illusion. But recently I realized that there is really little difference between my position and that of the strictest, most deterministic Calvinism (without the hell or heaven). Now I know that submitting to God’s will is merely “submitting to reality” “accepting what is” which we all do anyway (more or less reluctantly).
Interestingly, I realized this when I was reading about who fears death the most — the religious or the atheists. According to one study I read (I will try to dredge it up if I have time later), the people who feared death the least were the extremely religious and the atheists, while those who feared it the most tended to be in the middle of the religiosity spectrum. I wonder if this is partly because both the extremely religious and the atheists have completely submitted themselves to God’s will, the only difference being that, while the religious understand this attitude as submitting to God’s will, the atheist sees it as submitting to a deterministic reality.
Thoughts?
No, submitting to God's will is NOT the same as accepting what is! The concept of "what is" is confusing. We can recognize God's will because it is mysterious and divine and miraculous, often in ironic and surprising ways.
The key thing to remember is that God is SMARTER than you!
Laws. Not metaphorical and allegorical writings, laws written to serve a god. And apparently people submitted to what they thought was this gods will, which is why the question was raised.
Pointing out sex with children is wrong? Pointing to ugly truths is wrong? Some things need to be bashed.
And your need to misrepresent is hateful, miserable and bashing. A good dose of priorities will cure your self hatred.
"Laws written to serve a God"? THAT is the "misrepresentation".
We have had The Roman's, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the Europeans taking North America, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc, etc...that's just how the world has been.
How many can trace lineage back to Genghis Khan? That tells you a lot about what he did.
Funny though...you just bash "Religion" for wrongdoing.
I have a great idea! Submit to God's will!! That'll pep you up!
[Serious question here, Gldn, with no insulting or bashing intended. Just trying to understand....]
If "God is All" (my shorthand for what I understand to be your belief), how does "all" have a will? What does that look like? And how do we go about identifying what that might be? We typically see "God's will" used in reference to the wants and expectations of deity-like beings, but that presumably is not what you meant above, since you similarly reject those anthropomorphic gods. I'm having trouble fitting this concept within the context of everything else you write.
No, submitting to God's will is NOT the same as accepting what is! The concept of "what is" is confusing. We can recognize God's will because it is mysterious and divine and miraculous, often in ironic and surprising ways.
The key thing to remember is that God is SMARTER than you!
So what is it's brain made of? Where is it? And how do you know?
[Serious question here, Gldn, with no insulting or bashing intended. Just trying to understand....]
If "God is All" (my shorthand for what I understand to be your belief), how does "all" have a will? What does that look like? And how do we go about identifying what that might be? We typically see "God's will" used in reference to the wants and expectations of deity-like beings, but that presumably is not what you meant above, since you similarly reject those anthropomorphic gods. I'm having trouble fitting this concept within the context of everything else you write.
"Laws written to serve a God"? THAT is the "misrepresentation".
We have had The Roman's, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the Europeans taking North America, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc, etc...that's just how the world has been.
How many can trace lineage back to Genghis Khan? That tells you a lot about what he did.
Funny though...you just bash "Religion" for wrongdoing.
If this forum were about world history or ruthless rulers, abuse of power, imperialism and any of those kinds of topics, then no doubt we'd be "bashing" all that wrong-doing just the same, but this happens to be a forum about "Religion and Spirituality" and this thread about submitting to God's will...
So, it's about religion here and not all other wrong-doing anyone might decide to bash. I mean right?!?
That sort of argumentative tactic is commonly referred to as "what aboutism." About that too, "two wrongs don't make a right!"
"Laws written to serve a God"? THAT is the "misrepresentation".
Thou shalt not have any gods before me is not serving a god?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GldnRule
We have had The Roman's, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the Europeans taking North America, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc, etc...that's just how the world has been.
How many can trace lineage back to Genghis Khan? That tells you a lot about what he did.
Cool. I prefer my history to be more specific, and relevant to the OP, but you have an irrelevant boat to float.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GldnRule
Funny though...you just bash "Religion" for wrongdoing.
Yes, when it does wrong I 'bash' it, and praise it for the good. Should I bash it when it does good? It seems a strange way to do things, but then you do give religious bigotry a free pass while attacking any fact you do not like.
[Serious question here, Gldn, with no insulting or bashing intended. Just trying to understand....]
If "God is All" (my shorthand for what I understand to be your belief), how does "all" have a will? What does that look like? And how do we go about identifying what that might be? We typically see "God's will" used in reference to the wants and expectations of deity-like beings, but that presumably is not what you meant above, since you similarly reject those anthropomorphic gods. I'm having trouble fitting this concept within the context of everything else you write.
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