Searching

[masterofNone]

Who says? You can make assertions all day long, but where do you get your ideas? What authority do you base these statements on? Encyclopedia Galactica?

Well, first, in a discussion like this all we have are gratuitous assertions since no one has any objective evidence. And, second, given that we're all dealing with assertions I was just pointing out what the religions say themselves... although I tend to agree. And, finally, let's define our terms. My definition of the term "God" includes the words infinite, unknowable, and indescribable. Your definition may vary. But, given my definition, you cannot define the infinite, you cannot know the unknowable, you cannot describe the indescribable. From a purely semantic point of view at least it is a logical impossibility. And there is the paradox of God that is addressed in the referenced saying.

The god you can describe is not The God because God is beyond description.

The nice thing about logic... you don't need to carry an Encyclopedia. Logic isn't bulky, it unfolds.

[Deviate]

Originally posted by masterofNone
Logic isn't bulky, it unfolds.

this steals my words.

-st.

[noxxville]

Oddly enough, my girlfriend and I had a conversation very much along these lines last night. It was refreshing. This morning I woke up and remembered something that I had read years ago an has stuck with me ever since. It was something simple, yet spoke volumes to me.

I looked up the word "life" in an old dictionary I had (cheap way to find the meaning of life). The fifth or sixth definition stood out, and I've remembered it ever since.

Life - something essential to the continued existence of something else.

[lapietra]

thou art God

[Indigo]

originally posted by me:
I accept the fact that I don't know. I accept the fact that I'm not going to be the one to discover the big secret, and in that I've just lost the desire to argue our existence with anyone.

I'd send you a dollar but I'm pretty sure you'd just go drinking with Mike Hunt.

[moel]

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[Indigo]

Dirty Rotten Imbiciles

God is broke,
The well ran dry
So pay up while you can
Or you'll end up in hell



________

just a good old punk groove

[moel]

I had a dream last night I was about to meet god...
And when I awoke.... it was true.... it was only a dream.

[amanda]

The Search

I went to find the pot of gold
That's waiting where the rainbow ends
I searched and searched and searched and searched
And searched and searched and then-
There it was, deep in the grass,
Under an old and twisty bough
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine at last...
What do I search for now?

--Shel Silverstein

[moel]

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[beckstra]

Do you know why I believe the Bible really doesn't touch on our search for God? Because I believe he knows if we succeeded, we'd be too overwhelmed, too fallible to function, even to the point where we'd die.

Exodus 33:19,20

And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD , in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

As selfish as it may seem, I believe that our purpose is not to know him as we are discussing here (the ins and outs, functions and form, reason and logic), but to know him as to be known by him. If you were to concieve a list of the word "search" in the contexts that it is found in the Bible, the majority of contexts of this word consist of God searching for us, thus seperating Christian theology from any other religion or philosophy.

I believe the way we find God is when we search for him to be known by him.


Psalm 139

O LORD , you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in-behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

[petitesoeur]

Originally posted by moel
Yes Yes!! Everyone feel welcome to add to this!...I love this philosophical thing we got going on here...even if all it does is inspire thought thats the idea.....great!!

i suggest this thread become a wakka on the zewikki.

whaddya think?

[moel]

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