@PacificDT & Symphony Editorial Podcast
The Piel:
Switched to Ubuntu this week. Kubuntu died.
Got a friend set up with an inkVerb server. All-in-one, email, cloud, blog, store, media, workspace, contacts. Another friend half-set up because I’m still learning.
Inches from opening three separate online stores.
Resolution: Open one new online business each week.
Took a break from politics. Less controversial…
Dear James:
Since you ask about religion, I should tell you my own view. Don’t be blind to how dangerous some religions can be. The big problem is with religions that try to force their will on others. Some people even try to “force tolerance” in the name of “religious tolerance”, which is a bunch of hooey. They just want to force what they want without admitting it.
When you form an opinion about a religion, you need to look at what its “sacred book” teaches. Never look at the individual people and members of that religion. They are never perfect. They can be extreme or hypocritical, usually both. Most rude Christians get their ideas and culture from their Sunday morning crowd—doing things that the Bible condemns. The Kuran clearly teaches that Allah hates his enemies, making him very different from Adonai, the Lord that the Bible teaches about, who loves everyone and overcomes His enemies.
In my own view, I think two beliefs are important, concerning religion. Carnal thinking breeds hate. When you think about something higher, it’s easy to rise above your own challenges and respond in love.
First, look at the promised rewards of the afterlife. I think mating and marriage are too carnal to be an everlasting reward in the afterlife. After we die, we will have new and higher pleasures. If we have the same pleasures that wouldn’t be Heaven, but a gangster’s paradise, where the elite get to be better than everyone else.
Second, I thinks it is responsible—by science, philosophy, religion, or any other topic—to believe in a “Creator God Most High”. Such a being is not merely “good”, he is “separate”. Chinese, Greek, and Roman mythologies describe worship of “gods” which are more comparable to the Bible’s angels than actual deities. Never worship angels. We need to accept the metaphysical evidence of a generative, creating, supporting God, whose existence runs deeper than the foundation of molecules, emotions, and even the fabric of choice itself. Everything must have a beginning and, unless we can clearly see ourselves, without need for evidence, that we are our own origin of existence, then we must believe that our existence was preceded and initiated by something before us. I think that’s just responsible thinking.
Moreover, God Most High, whoever He is, must have a nature of goodness and no nature of evil. The existence of pain does not disprove this. A God Most High’s role would be to maintain our fabric, not be a Divine Communist who rewards the lazy and hard-working equally, or the Great Nanny who runs around making sure that no one ever feels pain for making bad choices. God Most High upholds rules of justice, making things like daylight and gravity somewhat predictable, yet with enough ordered chaos that our world has both beauty and opportunity.
Remember, God Most High must be loving in His nature because hatred is the absence of love. Love and hate work like light and darkness. Without light, darkness destroys everything. With light, darkness doesn’t stand a chance because the presence of light dispels the darkness by definition. The ability to recognize darkness proves our knowledge of something different—light—and knowledge of light proves knowledge of a source of light. So with God Most High, awareness of evil and pain prove our knowledge of love, implying a source for love. So, our questions surrounding God’s goodness and our pain do not beg the question of why He has not removed all shadows—removing our ability to act and choose—but of why we tolerate so many shadows around us, rather than tapping into Him as our source of love and light.
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Here we go… https://t.co/BCY3wkessm
— Jesse Steele (@JesselSteele) March 28, 2016