Is there a God...

Is there a God? Throughout my study I have basically learned that the Christian religion and perspective of God is either incomplete or too flawed to be the ultimate religion; neither could any other religion suffice. But I do believe that there is a phenomena that exists of which the Judaic conception of God -- or dtao; nibbana -- is directed towards.

Let me explain in this way. When an artist paints a portrait of a small townhouse, he paints with a limited vision of the building. If the house is in his North, he can only paint its South; and if the man does not percieve colour, then the painting may not have the correct colour. This is actually a common belief in many spiritual teachings (See: The Elephant and the Monks ). So let's assume that all existing religion is a flawed perspective of God.

I believe that you need to consider religion in itself to be an artform (definition: a tool used, often creatively, to express something integral or superfluous to the human existence). It however differs from many other artforms because it is a behemoth that encompasses everything else within it: human heirarchy (check), philosophy (check), painting, storytelling, pastoral care (check, check, check), etcetera. To look at religion everywhere in the world, you would be able to find a common set of structure or rules which apply to all of them; and furthermore, no society in the world (as far as I am aware) has existed completely independent of religion.

So is there a overarching form of deity in which all humans are attuned to? Is it a deeply human experience to believe in a religion; and is to respect and admire religion also to respect and admire something deeply human (and beautiful)? I don't remember why I wrote this post, because I've taken some pretty heavy sedatives to assist in sleep. But I just wanted to share some of the knowledge which I have accumulated over the years.

Merry Christmas, and a happy new year

The first addendum I'd make is you seem to rule out historical perspective, as if all religions happened organically. Perhaps the house was purposefully painted with less colors. It's quite a jump then to say all religions are a necessarily a flawed perspective, even more so because your text seems to imply there is such a thing as an universal religion. I'm of the opinion there is not. While there are some universal values (see perennial philosophy), they aren't expressed the same way throughout different cultures, a major reason being that it relies on the language of each culture, which both stems from the intelligence from that particular people and can restrain it further. For example, there are languages in Africa with no concept of future. That is bad enough in itself, but as you might imagine it compounds in a negative loop. Now snowball those effects in religion. I have more to say about your OP, but first let's see if this thread takes off

This 'common' deity is Nature herself, you are a part of her, you act according to her (or should).

Happy Yuletide

Religion's not science, and it doesn't really pay to treat it as such except in actual money, i.e. if youre able to strike a balance between what's adequate, and what sells (in your writing). Like art, science, politics, mathematics, philosophy, etc. religion is a field of inquiry and practice. All these fields begin with certain axioms.
If the mind directs itself as (you) say toward 'some phenomenon,' then that something is necessarily psychological because of the word chosen (phenomenon) to describe it. Is this what (you) wanted to convey?

Christianity explicitly says there's no truth anywhere else and that's one of it's major tenets (thou shalt have no gods before me). Incorporating it into hermeticism is unviable.

That's one of my least favorite parts of the religion, Christian Universalism sounds neat but it doesn't seem very popular.

That's the best part of abrahamic religions my boy, read Girard, read Carlyle.

I'm familiar with both, I find the militant missionary mindset of Christianity and the way they eradicate local religions and culture disgusting. I'm glad they were ousted out of Japan before it was too late.

>as if all religions happened organically
Everything that humans have done is completely natural to who we are. As written in the book Straw Dogs, urban infrastructure is as organic as the complexities of a beehive (paraphrase)

>such thing as a universal religion
I don't in any way believe that a perfect representation of God could exist through the medium of human religion. However, I do believe that there is an core experience that religion is artfully (and sometimes wrongly) expressing.

>Something about Africa
Don't really know what you were saying here, but I do see that different foundational concepts can limit the extent to which a society can understand the wider world. Take the Australian aboriginals who had no form of written texts, and communicated mostly through dance and cave paintings. This greatly affected how they expressed "God"

Nature is important, but I'm directing the attention to something more abstract about the human experience -- such as how psychotics explain (verbally) their thoughts (mental) through spiritual themes like demons (religious expression)

Sorry, but I couldn't comprehend what you were saying. As said in the OP, I am heavily sedated.

but I think you're right in saying that religion is a field of inquiry. I'm just trying to explain that it is a field of inquiry into being human, (and ultimately, an abstract god-type)

I should have clarified that with 'Nature' I meant more than 'the fauna and flora on our planet'. I was talking about the whole, the universe, the driving force behind everything. I see religion more as a spiritual means to connect the organic with this omnipotent Nature, a spiritual bridge, if you wish. I like polytheistic religions more because of the stories. Of course, there are no bearded gods in the sky with spears, hammers and enormous wolves or lions. These 'pagan' (not strictly European, 'pagan religions' exist(ed) all over the world) gods should be seen as archetypes. Each god impersonated certain forces, all of which combined make up this one Nature. That been said, Christianity by example is in a way polytheistic too (angles and saints who all combined are part of this one God.)
Anyway if there is one thing that all religions share in my opinion, it's this spiritual bridge to that which is higher than us mere humans

I just now woke up from a dream of you guys all arguing about this and the christfags were getting BTFO’d from this. Not kidding at all, just 5 minutes ago woke up and jerked off thinking about my tinder date and this just after having dreamt lit was arguing about theism and the agnostics were winning. Make of that what you will my friends, Merry Xmas

It's a false equivalence to compare urban structure to some religions, even more so Christianity. The urban model as we know it did indeed happen organically, as it came to be through gradual development of villages thousands of years ago. The existence of planning doesn't make it artificial, what would make it not organic is if, in an age where everyone lead rural lives, someone appeared out of nowhere with a a guideline of how we are supposed to organize from this day forward. This is exactly what happened with Christianity. As I said before, this doesn't apply to all religions, but it does to Abrahamic religions. Heathen faiths around the globe developed as an expression of the local folk culture. Abrahamic religions were created, including a bundle of influences(the word influences might be too soft to accurately describe it) and rigid guidelines that ought to be followed. The closest one of them got to gradual evolution was Judaism, but still it was built by what the jewish tribes incorporating into their belief system doctrines from wherever they happened to roam at the time. Then both Christianity and Islam were created in the previously described fashion following the foundations laid by Judaism(which would suffer modifications itself, as it already had before - Christianity would as well, mainly in Europe). That's quite different from, say, the religion of the Germanic tribes, which was an expression of their culture, directly linked to their blood. For any religion to be universal it inherently needs to be an artificial creation, for a natural continuation of a people's mythology can't be copied and pasted. Unless of course we are talking of a nomadic people with little to no attachment to their lands, such as the jewish tribes. Their link to Israel is more a political statement than anything else, for if their religion can exist far from their lands that's enough testament of what I was speaking about.
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>I don't in any way believe that a perfect representation of God could exist through the medium of human religion
That's what I mean when I used the example of African languages. Even though this catchphrase has only become popular in the Information Era, the medium has always been the message. As a tool, language is bound to have some failures, and the meanings it allows its users to express are a direct influence into whatever thinkers(or even common folk) use it. Even in a normal conversation, say between me and you, the words I'm using might be just the best approximation I can come up with for my thoughts, they might not portray exactly what I wish, be it for my own incompetence or for the limitations the language itself imposes. The effects of that on a 1x1 conversation are already considerable, imagine on a large scale then. That better illustrates my previous point about the negative loop: a people's development is directly linked to their use of language, and as that reverberates on a daily basis, the limitations imposed by the language end up affecting the language itself, which in turn will further impose limitations, so on and so forth. That will dictate the development of a particular culture, including religion. That is only one of the barriers for an universal religion. It can also be said that certain cultures develop a certain religion through usage of communication tools other than language, which will understandably be incomprehensible for outsiders. Thus their understanding of reality is instrinsically linked to their lands.

Why does all of the above matters? To show there can't be an universal religion, and the closest you can get to it is a standard religion which is differently represented in different parts of the globe, such as is Christianity today. Nowhere does it still follow the original Christian tenets, for the only way of preserving the "originality" is for it to be the natural religion of a people, so it's linked to their blood, something that can't be changed unless they miscigenate(something which facilitates the spread of universalist religions, see Latin America). Given Christianity isn't actual Christianity anywhere in the world, its only use is being a tool for maintaning a political power structure, which is in effect what happens. This ties back into what I meant with "as if all religions happened organically". My point was Christianity(and Islam - I'm not including Judaism because it's very minor, but it is still the groundwork for Christianity and Islam) is not organic, and if anything it's a tool for facilitating the maintanence of a power structure. Thus Christianity was created to transfer power to certain groups. How it was used to usurp positions in the Roman Empire, setting a precedent for Europe, is quite the example of that.

And here I thought there would be actual discussion in this thread... Is it because of my criticism of Christianity? I've seen anons run away from debate too many times for that reason for me not to be suspicious of it

Christianity incorporates local cultures at least. You'll notice that European Christianity is very different from South American Christianity, in terms of what each focuses on. And both are different from East Asian Christianity, is different from Russian Orthodoxy, is different from African strains. It's the only Abrahamic religion which simultaneously changes your entire belief system but doesn't change the more important parts of your culture.

That being said, it does get rid of certain practices, like human sacrifice, so I suppose that's a cultural loss in a sense.

Have you looked into hermeticism, or neoplatonism?

Perhaps religions start of teaching something true to a few disciples but degrade over time with the addition of new dogmas, ideas, interactions with the world, corrupt priests and leaders until only a few shreds of truth remain.

>I’m an atheist but, like, spiritual

Christianity doesn't teach you anything about God. But that's to expect from a (((subversive))) cult. We don't deny the authority of Yeshua; he preached the name of Krsna, just like us.

>Christianity doesn't teach you anything about God.
??????

It doesn't tell you his name, for starters.

karma is real and praying to god actually helped me so i believe in him

You say religion isn't a science and then describe it as a field of inquiry with axioms, etc.

>Given Christianity isn't actual Christianity anywhere in the world, its only use is being a tool for maintaning a political power structure, which is in effect what happens
Christianity isn't only a tool of power, (and calling it a tool of power I think is just wrong), it also structures societies and leads to some of the happiest/most satisfied people, not to mention eternity with God. If it were simply a tool for power there wouldn't be so much emphasis on the individual and the Bible wouldn't be so hard to interpret.

>he calls his father by his name
Just kidding, but if that's all you have to say for evidence of your claim then you'll have to do better than that. Christianity teaches that God is loving, He sent His only son to die for our sins, created everything, ultimate justice, good, etc.

I'm not saying God doesn't exist. I'm saying "christianity" is a bunch of jewish lies, more concerned with deifying kristo (your claim that he's The only son of god) than to advance us spiritually

Hello Satan

>jewish lies