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God is not what you think It is.

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prizma
I am posting this excerpt from one of the books in The Conversations with God series in hopes that those who have dismissed the possibility of God
because of the confusion surrounding the definition of God, may look deeper into the Truth that is God, and thus look deeper into the Truth
is Life.
If but one person comes to discover these dialogues further, my post will not be in vain, please use your intuition in finding your own Truth,
take nothing on pure faith but rather take what rings True for you and discard the rest.

My hopes are that all of you will research these writings and feel the resonance of Truth myself and millions of others have felt, and go on to spread
the message of Unity expressed therein.
I will leave the discussion on this post completely open, however lets keep it friendly and resist the urge to attack other people's views.

Namaste


Tomorrow's God (chapter 5) by Neale Donald Walsch wrote:

Neale: You seem to be using the word "Life" a lot here. And you have said before, in previous dialogues, that this word is
interchangeable for the word "God". Is this what you want humanity to understand at last? Will Tomorrow's God
not require us to "believe in God" in the conventional sense, but merely to believe in "Life"?

God: When you believe in Life, you do believe in God, whether you say it in so many words or not. You can be an
atheist or an agnostic or anything in between, and it will not matter to Tomorrow's God.
It does not matter today, but tomorrow all of you will know this. Tomorrow, every human will understand. And that
understanding will be good because it will eliminate much of the conflict that has resulted from each of you
believing in your particular God in your particular way.
You have not been able to agree with each other on this topic when you have used the word "God," or "Allah," or
"Jehovah," "Brahman," or the many other names you have given to the Essence and the Being, the All and the Only. Now I
suggest that there is another word for God, the meaning of which you may all agree upon. When this word is
exchanged for the word "God," everything suddenly becomes simple and clear.

Neale: And that word is "Life"?

God: Yes. "Life" is the one word in your many languages that comes closest to carrying the meaning that some of you
are seeking to express when you use the word "Allah" or "God" or "Brahman," "Vishnu," or "Shiva," and that you
hope describes or can be a container for the "stuff that God is."
In one word,LIFE is the "stuff that God is."
Life IS. Life is that which IS. It has no shape, no form, no gender. It has no color, no fragrance, and size. It is ALL
shapes, all forms, all colors,fragrances, and sizes. It is both genders and that which is genderless as well.
It is the All, and Everything, and it is the No Thing from which the Everything emerges.
There is nothing Life creates that is not Life itself. All that you see around you is Life, expressing. Life is
everything. It runs in, as and through everything. YOU are Life, expressing. And Life is You, expressing itself
as you.
Everybody else is Life, expressing. There is no one,not a single living being, who is not an expression of Life.
Even those you consider the worst among you are an expression of Life.
None of these statements seems controversial. Not many people would seriously argue with them. The truth of
these statements seems obvious on the surface.
Now, play a little trick on yourself. Play a little game. Exchange the word Life" for the word "God," and see what
happens. Watch your mind go crazy. Make the same statement, as above, but use the word "God" in place of the
word "Life," and watch what your mind does with it.
Go ahead. Place the statement in quotes because it is going to be an exact duplicate of the statement above, with
the exception being that the word "God" has replaced the word "Life."

Neale: Okay here goes....
"God IS. God is that which IS. God has no shape, no form, no gender. God has no color, no fragrance, no size.
God is ALL shapes, all forms, all colors, fragrances, and sizes. God is both genders, and that which is
genderless as well.
God is the All, and Everything. There is nothing God creates that is not God itself. All that you see, everywhere
around you, is God, expressing. God is everything. It runs in, as, and through everything. YOU are God,
expressing itself as you.
Everybody else is God, expressing. There is no one, not a single living being, who is not an expression of God.
Even those you consider the worst among you are an expression of God."

God: Now, was that easy to say and accept?

Neale: For me, yes, for some others, probably not.

God: Indeed, for some human beings those words would be almost impossible to agree with.

Neale: yes. Some people would find the first statement perfectly reasonable and the second statement
blasphemous.

God: That is because some of you have been imagining that God is NOT Life, but rather, that God stands outside
of Life, creating Life, but not being it.
Yet I tell you this:
The words "Life" and "God" are interchangeable. When you understand the basis of the New Spirituality, you will
have a one-word definition of Tomorrow's God, and you will have the makings of an almost automatic inner
guidance system for living the New Spirituality that can change the collective experience on your planet.

Neale: It is just so hard to accept a God who says that we do not have to believe in God. I am so used to a demanding
God who not only says that I have to believe in Him, but tells me exactly how I have to believe in
Him,what I have to believe about, and why I have to believe in him

God: Do you think Life cares whether you believe in Life? Life does not go away, and it does not treat you any
differently, depending upon how you feel about it. Life simply is, and your believing in it or not believing in it does
nothing to change that or affect that.
Life will not "punish" you if you do not believe in Life, nor will Life "reward" you if you do. Life does not
objectively create rewards and punishments. Life is a process.

Neale: But if the words "God" and "Life" are interchangeable, this would mean that God is a process.

God: That is correct.

Neale: God is a process?

God: That is correct.

Neale: Well, that's certainly a different definition.

God: There is much about Tomorrow's God that will be different.

Neale: Do you think this is a God that people are going to be able to accept?

God: Not today, perhaps. But tomorrow, yes. On a near-future tomorrow, yes.

Neale: What is the process that God is?

God: Life.

Neale: Ah, full circle.

God: Yes.
And this is the Fifth Important Difference between Yesterday's God and Tomorrow's God:
5. Tomorrow's God is not a singular Super Being, but the extraordinary process called Life.

Neale: This is not a small thing here. This is not an insignificant change in our theological constructions. For some, this
is a major shift. For some, this is blasphemy.

God: Yet this shift in the way you view and understand God can save the World. it can preserve your way of life.
On humanity's yesterday's most people who believed in God thought of God a Super Being , which allowed them
to create a God in their mind who is like a person. In other words, a Bigger Version of themselves.
In thinking this way and constructing God in this way, they created God in the image and likeness of
humans-which is exactly the opposite of what they said that God did.
Many humans say that God has told the world that God created humans in the image and likeness of God. And, of
course, if you imagine God to be simply a larger, more magnificent, more powerful version of humans, it makes
sense to you that you are the way you are-albeit imperfect-and that God is a Super Being, or Super Version of
you.But if I tell you now that God is not a Super Being at all, but the process called Life, your theological apple cart is
turned upside down. Suddenly, not only is humanity the image and likeness of God, everything else is as
well. This changes your relationship with all things. Now, everything is one thing, and that One Thing is
called God.This is not a new idea. This is not "New Thought" or "New Age." Many of your scientists and philosophers have
been saying this for centuries. In fact, this is the crossroad where science, philosophy, and religion meet. Each
may continue beyond this crossroad, taking once again their individual direction, but if they forget or ignore the
fact that they have intersected here, they do so at their peril. Their disciplines become useless, for they are
incomplete.
The New Spirituality does not ignore this crossroad, but stands squarely in the middle of it.
That this New Spirituality, widely adopted, would change the world, there is no doubt. It could save the world from
self-destruction.

Neale: Because human beings would never do the things they are doing now doing to the earth, much less the things
they are doing to each other, if they thought they were doing all these things to themselves.

God: Exactly. Self-preservation would kick in. Your built-in cellular encoding---survival---would immediately preclude
such behavior. You would instinctively repel from it.
You would never do things to your own body that you do without a second thought to the body of another. You
could never treat your own feelings the way your treat, without giving it a second thought, the feelings of another.
You could never do to your own family, or your own country, what you do to the families and the countries of
another.The only way you can justify treating other countries, other cultures, other people, the way that you do is to
imagine---no, to insist---that they are separate from you. To make this separation more vivid, and to give
yourselves justification for acting the way you do, you also insist that these others separate from God. Only YOU
are united with God, only YOU are God's people, only YOU are following God's plan for salvation.
The fact that your understanding of God's Plan for Salvation is killing half the human race is of no concern to you.
The reason they are dying is either because they deserve to die ("Kill the infidels!") or because they have
unwittingly brought about their own demise by not following the path to the One and True God---who is separate
from them and connected only to YOU by means of some special covenant or revelation or understanding.
This is how your human theologies have created your Cultural Story around Yesterday's God---and it is why
Yesterday's God has become one of humanity's greatest downfalls.

Neale: Oh, my God, don't say that. It is Satan who is the downfall of Man. Don't say that God is Man's
downfall. That is apostasy!

God: By Yesterday's God I mean Yesterday's ideas about God, Yesterday's conceptualizations about God. These
are what have been humanity's downfall. They have not led humanity to the place where it says it wishes to go.
They have not brought peace, harmony, and happiness. They have not produced the Golden Age of
Enlightenment. They have brought tears and anger and violence and bloodshed and untold anguish and terrible
destruction across the globe and around the world.
God herself has not done this, but your ideas about God have. God himself would never do such a thing, but
human beings would, and have.

Neale: And Tomorrow's God will change all this?

God: The ideas about God that humanity will embrace on that future tomorrow can and will affect all of this in a very
positive way.

Neale: So, as I said, this really isn't just a modest shift in our conceptualizations about God. This is a major change, and
would, in turn, create a massive alteration of our Cultural Story. It would dramatically alter what we tell each
other about Life.
I'm not sure humanity is ready for a change on that order of magnitude. Human beings have a complicated
relationship with change. They don't like it very much.

God: And that is why human beings have always had a complicated relationship with God.


Last edited by prizma on Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:47 am; edited 2 times in total
spinout
Save the world from self destruction... God is kicking itself in his/her ass on this planet right now - so say???

So when will this 'communist'-age come to us? This century ... And before the turnover will chaos rule the planet Earth I suppose? Let there be a soft turnover - in gods name Smile)
Bikerman
I object to this passage on a mixture of 'ethical'/procedural grounds; practical grounds; and finally on grounds of good taste in effective debate.

1) It is, I believe, inappropriate to regurgitate huge chunks of third-party material in this way in discussion for the ethical/procedural reason that it is, in my opinion, unethical, or at the very least of questionable netiquette, to do so if the work in question is not already in the public domain. Where the work IS in the public domain then a link or reference is always, I think, to be preferred. You have clearly quoted the material which is in itself fine - many people try to pass such stuff off as their own, and I am not making any such criticism - but the length of this seems to me to beg the question regardless....

2) On practical grounds a passage of quoted material of this length is, I think, likely to be self defeating. You say your aim is to engage those who have 'resisted god'. In my experience such people will also resist any urge to read a large chunk of third-party material like this and so are unlikely to 'benefit'.

3) Finally, and here I'm going to let myself off my self-imposed leash of politeness a little bit more than normal - I object on the grounds that it is eye-wateringly, gut-wrenchingly, mind-numbingly awful- exactly the kind of circular, pompous, self-regarding, meaningless twaddle I would normally associate with the various new-age mystics, crystal danglers, tarot readers and other assorted pondlife.

If you actually read it analytically (and I don't actually recommend it unless you have medical insurance, since in my own case the experience was enough to cause a nervous tick, raised blood pressure and prolonged moaning sounds), you will find that it says absolutely nothing, adds nothing to our knowledge, doesn't even do what it set's out to do and is, in essence, a waste of time, paper, electricity and effort.

It starts with the 'disciple' questioning the assumption that God and Life are inter-changeable terms.
The 'guru' then spends the rest of the passage saying that God and Life are interchangeable in different ways without ever taking the argument any further, let alone tackling the obvious and numerous objections and problems the statement immediately raises.

The only semi-meaningful statement that comes out of it is that made by the 'apprentice' - life is a process' - but on examination that turns out to be another tautology - of course life is a bleedin process, what else would it be ? A giraffe? A cup of tea? A process is a set of actions or interactions which produces a result, so, yes, life is a process. SO WHAT! What does that actually tell us that we didn't already know?

I thought it might be a Zen approach to teaching at first. The Zen master points out to the student the central Zen message that in seeking enlightenment you are doomed to fail, since desire is itself the problem. He often does this by giving meaningless, contradictory or unintelligible answers to questions in order to 'shake' the student into the state of awareness of that truth since there is no other way in which it can be attained. I think that here, though, that would be crediting the guy with much more profundity than merited.
spinout
OK, so no one really reacted on my 'communist' - age term... Well, Neale had a big dropout of readers when God started to act politically. That's why I took it up...
I had no idea of flaming or so, just starting some discussion here.

Also Neale did start to make good profit on the discussion - I read that God actually wasn't happy about this...
prizma
God has no opinion on how much Neale was compensated for his publications I'm sure.
As for the communist view, he may have lost a few people who didn't see the application of re-engineering society to work together instead of against each other. As for me, I'm all for it, in fact I've made it my life's mission to establish a society of Highly Evolved Beings here on Earth. I intend on creating a new country, and get back to a more tribal/community based living while still enjoying the technology of this era. If not for thinkers who dreamed of things not yet considered possible we would not have a great many of todays innovations. So I will hold of to my vision of self-sustaining communities, linking into a larger community. Honestly I have an inventive idea that may evolve to solve World Hunger, but the World's largest problem is really not economical, it's spiritual, and so I've made it my mission to also help change the worlds beliefs to create a more Life sustaining system.

Thank you for your time,
looking forward to chatting more.
prizma
Bikerman wrote:
I object to this passage on a mixture of 'ethical'/procedural grounds; practical grounds; and finally on grounds of good taste in effective debate.

1) It is, I believe, inappropriate to regurgitate huge chunks of third-party material in this way in discussion for the ethical/procedural reason that it is, in my opinion, unethical, or at the very least of questionable netiquette, to do so if the work in question is not already in the public domain. Where the work IS in the public domain then a link or reference is always, I think, to be preferred. You have clearly quoted the material which is in itself fine - many people try to pass such stuff off as their own, and I am not making any such criticism - but the length of this seems to me to beg the question regardless....

2) On practical grounds a passage of quoted material of this length is, I think, likely to be self defeating. You say your aim is to engage those who have 'resisted god'. In my experience such people will also resist any urge to read a large chunk of third-party material like this and so are unlikely to 'benefit'.

3) Finally, and here I'm going to let myself off my self-imposed leash of politeness a little bit more than normal - I object on the grounds that it is eye-wateringly, gut-wrenchingly, mind-numbingly awful- exactly the kind of circular, pompous, self-regarding, meaningless twaddle I would normally associate with the various new-age mystics, crystal danglers, tarot readers and other assorted pondlife.

If you actually read it analytically (and I don't actually recommend it unless you have medical insurance, since in my own case the experience was enough to cause a nervous tick, raised blood pressure and prolonged moaning sounds), you will find that it says absolutely nothing, adds nothing to our knowledge, doesn't even do what it set's out to do and is, in essence, a waste of time, paper, electricity and effort.

It starts with the 'disciple' questioning the assumption that God and Life are inter-changeable terms.
The 'guru' then spends the rest of the passage saying that God and Life are interchangeable in different ways without ever taking the argument any further, let alone tackling the obvious and numerous objections and problems the statement immediately raises.

The only semi-meaningful statement that comes out of it is that made by the 'apprentice' - life is a process' - but on examination that turns out to be another tautology - of course life is a bleedin process, what else would it be ? A giraffe? A cup of tea? A process is a set of actions or interactions which produces a result, so, yes, life is a process. SO WHAT! What does that actually tell us that we didn't already know?

I thought it might be a Zen approach to teaching at first. The Zen master points out to the student the central Zen message that in seeking enlightenment you are doomed to fail, since desire is itself the problem. He often does this by giving meaningless, contradictory or unintelligible answers to questions in order to 'shake' the student into the state of awareness of that truth since there is no other way in which it can be attained. I think that here, though, that would be crediting the guy with much more profundity than merited.


Boy, you did pull pretty tight on that "leash of politness" but seeing as it's self-imposed you have every right to be so caustic.
It was as I was reading "Tomorrow's God" that I decided this might shake ya'll (excuse that I've lived in Tennessee, WAY to long)up a bit, I decided to type the entire chapter for context, I would have liked to cite a shorter quote, but as you can see "God" is pretty verbiose. Upon reading the next chapter found it too could spark some interesting debates, and I will probably type it up as also. So what? If it leads just one person to read more of these writings, I'm happy.
I had typed up that entire chapter well before I had any idea what I was going to prologue it with, really my intent was to just get the information out there, because I feel that if Humanity adopts some different beliefs about God it will have an impact on the way we treat each other and ultimately change things for the better on this planet. What I had to say about it really, is not relevant, I realize the discussablilty was weak, but I figured really just getting people thinking was the point. Now granted, I picked some of the toughest people to convince first, the athiests on this forum for example, but I am undaunted and will continue to cite the works of Neale Donald Walsch in hopes that I reach just a few. I realize that most athiests will rush to discard these works as New-Age tripe, blather, blah, blah, blah.... They're just scared that they might come across something that shakes up their Paradigm. Well, hang on guys, because I'm going to keep it coming, it pleases me greatly to insist on the existance of God, but God itself has no need for you to believe, it's just my attempt to tip the scales and get this planet back to LOVE, instead of hate.
Just because all you see you me is a little thumbnail of a pic, and countless sterile words, doesn't mean I don't have feelings, so me a favor and try not to walk all over them.

As for the insults, I can only expect as much from someone so jaded by his seperation from the whole. I'm not saying every New Age mystic out there has the answers, I'm just saying that by dismissing everything that doesn't fit into your Newtonian way of looking at things, you miss out on some of the most enlightening ideas this side of the Millenium. So live a little, open your mind a bit, and don't get so worked up about a little post, seriously, if it made you that mad that I would try to expand some horizons, then maybe you have a little to much emotion invested in your belief system. Maybe you'll never see things the way I do, but it doesn't hurt me to try to show you, I just hope you don't hurt yourself in the Process.
Life is a process, and thus God is a Process, and God doesn't care whether you believe that or not.
Best Wishes
spinout
prizma wrote:
God has no opinion on how much Neale was compensated for his publications I'm sure.
As for the communist view, he may have lost a few people who didn't see the application of re-engineering society to work together instead of against each other. As for me, I'm all for it, in fact I've made it my life's mission to establish a society of Highly Evolved Beings here on Earth. I intend on creating a new country, and get back to a more tribal/community based living while still enjoying the technology of this era. If not for thinkers who dreamed of things not yet considered possible we would not have a great many of todays innovations. So I will hold of to my vision of self-sustaining communities, linking into a larger community. Honestly I have an inventive idea that may evolve to solve World Hunger, but the World's largest problem is really not economical, it's spiritual, and so I've made it my mission to also help change the worlds beliefs to create a more Life sustaining system.

Thank you for your time,
looking forward to chatting more.


So God can't be upset?... or have an opinion?

The thing started when Neale started to take a fee for his previoulsy free frequent outcast ... And infact you can read the text from 'God' about that in one of the books, it's in the first pages. Ofcourse God added the 'there is no right or wrong' clause - mathematically correct of course - and the discussion went on.

I'm sure the first thing to deal with - when / if going to a new state of mind - is the economics - that's why it will be turbulent!!!
The economy is for starters, for sure...
Bikerman
[quote="spinout"]
prizma wrote:
God has no opinion on how much Neale was compensated for his publications I'm sure.
As for the communist view, he may have lost a few people who didn't see the application of re-engineering society to work together instead of against each other. As for me, I'm all for it, in fact I've made it my life's mission to establish a society of Highly Evolved Beings here on Earth. I intend on creating a new country, and get back to a more tribal/community based living while still enjoying the technology of this era. If not for thinkers who dreamed of things not yet considered possible we would not have a great many of todays innovations. So I will hold of to my vision of self-sustaining communities, linking into a larger community. Honestly I have an inventive idea that may evolve to solve World Hunger, but the World's largest problem is really not economical, it's spiritual, and so I've made it my mission to also help change the worlds beliefs to create a more Life sustaining system.

Thank you for your time,
looking forward to chatting more.


Any insult you detected was not meant personally I assure you.
I have a tight code of self policed conduct on m/boards as follows: (In strict order - 1 and 2 are *always must do*. 3 is always try to do, and 4,5 are not always but normally....

1) I try never to make ANY personal comments unless directly arising from the posting
2) I never make insulting personal comments (to my knowledge - I certainly try to avoid ever doing so)
3) I try to be polite in my answers where possible and if, as here, I let myself go a bt then civility is a bare minimum and rudeness for any reason is a nono
4) Humour is never meant to turn into ridicule against the poster - although I have occasionally ridiculed a point being made, I do not ridicule the poster or generalise from the point in question into ad-hominem attacks
5) I normally aim to be polite, courteous and informative.

Since I post quite a lot it is fairly easy to challenge me on these claims by using the 'find all posts by bikerman' option in my profile - you may gather from this that I am reasonably confident in what I say. The only exception on this system was 1 single part of a thread where I stupidly got sucked-in. It has not happened since and will not happen again and I apologised at the time......profusely....


The new-age crack was not aimed personally or, for that matter, at any particular person or group who may read this...it was an exemplar of the sort of thing that I find tiresome and ultimately selfimportant self-absorbed attempts to be noticed or important or different rather than any real attempt or even intent to study the world analytically and carefully - the second is not sexy, does not get you invited to parties and does not impress the girls, friends or neighbours. It does, however, lead to a better understanding of the world and, if that is the goal, there is really no shortcut or substitute for it....it's called study! Speaking for myself, I'll finish my studies just before they cremate me....and even then reluctantly...
prizma
It is my pleasure to meet you, and apologize if it seems I took offense. I have a few views that have placed me outside the norm in a number of different circles, including my families own religion, and other people who just don't see the world the way I do. It seems Evolution is taking hold with me, I'd like to think Spiritually especially. I don't know where you hold Spirituality but I hold it in high regards when it comes to my True Evolution, and my place in this mixed up Universe.

A tribute to a happy fish tank in a happy home,
I'm finally settled in for a while no more moving.
Thank God
A poem:
You watch me as I pass your tank,
Am I your God?
When it rains food,
is it me that you thank?
You watch me as I watch you,
if no moment can be unaffected by the observer,
which of this is yours?
Our different perspectives, two parts of an Infinite Whole.

Idea
Indi
Normally i wouldn't have commented on this... but i was asked to, so....

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

This text is depressingly insipid. It possesses no qualities that suggest to me that anything but the most cursory thought was put into it. It posits one idea without any reasoning to back it up, then talks empty circles around it without ever at any point offering anything approaching a coherent argument to support why it might be true.

From the begining:

Why interchange "life" and "god"?
The first thing the author does is introduce this idea that the word "life" is interchangeable with "god". No reason for doing this is offered. No reason that "life" was chosen as the key word is put forward - there is nothing to suggest to me that i might not just as easily replace "god" with "sex", "destruction" or "cheese". It's just given as an eminently logical, without even a whit of thought to whether other options might be possible, or even better.

Madlibs
Still neglecting to explain why one might deign to choose "life" in the first place, the author moves on to showing that the substitution "works". He offers a self-selected section of text - that he has carefully edited himself, of course - with the word "life", then suggests replacing "life" with "god". Lo, it seems to work! Therefore it must be true that the words are interchangeable.

Or so the author seems to believe... and seems to think that the audience is dull enough to believe. But i've played madlibs, and i am quite good at it. Here is the text in question, with the replaceable areas blanked:
Quote:
________ IS. ________ is that which IS. ________ has no shape, no form, no gender. ________ has no color, no fragrance, no size.
________ is ALL shapes, all forms, all colors, fragrances, and sizes. ________ is both genders, and that which is
genderless as well.
________ is the All, and Everything. There is nothing ________ creates that is not ________ itself. All that you see, everywhere
around you, is ________, expressing. ________ is everything. It runs in, as, and through everything. YOU are ________,
expressing itself as you.
Everybody else is ________, expressing. There is no one, not a single living being, who is not an expression of ________.
Even those you consider the worst among you are an expression of ________.
On my honour, i have done nothing to the quotation above except copy it, reapply italics formatting, and do a find/replace to replace all instances of "God" with "________". That is all.

Now, what shall we fill those blanks with. We know "life" works, as does "god". What else shall we try? How about "dying"? Yes, that works well - at least, it works if one allows such grammatically correct but semantically vacuous statements as "Dying IS", but then, that statement is no more or less vacuous than "Life IS" or "God IS". Therefore, it would seem that "life" and "god" are interchangable with "dying". Hm. "Hatred" works, too. "Destruction". ID folk will be right pissed to discover that "evolution" works, too. And why limit ourselves to words we can use in polite company? "F**king" works, too.

(Looking ahead, we can take each of these words and substitute them for "life" and/or "god" anywhere in the entire piece - which is pretty striking evidence of the total lack of any real, deeper meaning it. Dying is a process, for example, as is evolution. So is fuc-... well, you get the idea.)

So, to recap our progress so far, we have had the idea that "god" and "life" are interchangeable without a shred of reasoning for why one might even begin to compare them. That is followed up by "evidence" of their interchangeability that works for dozens and dozens of concepts - some that could, i suppose, by stretching the imagination, be vaguely relevant... others that are entirely contradictory to the concept.

What is life really like?
Let's take a step back. So far the author has not given us any reason for why we might want to try substituting "life" for "god" or vice versa (and, in fact, never does anywhere in the piece quoted). Let's consider why one might even begin to say that "life" and "god" are identical. Are they? The author seems to find no reason to believe not, but has he even looked? He's certainly given us no reason to believe that he has.

So let's do his intellectual legwork ourselves. "God" is to poorly defined a concept to discuss functionally, so let's look at "life". What do we know about "life"? What is "life"? Of course, there are no definitive answers to the last question, which is why the author can get away with using it in such a vague way - no one can challenge him. But let's work with what we do have.

One of the things we do know about life is that it adapts itself to fill its surroundings wherever possible, spreading like bacteria, without restraint or concern for anything that gets in its way. Life destroys whatever it needs to destroy in order to continue its spread, consuming anything it needs until it can do so no more, and becomes controlled only be the scarcity of resources to consume. Life even destroys life, without hesitation or regret, and stops only when it finds a form of life that it is incapable of destroying, or that offers no threat and no benefit from its destruction.

Now, replace "life" with "god" in the above. Does this work the way you want it to?

Tsk, tsk, and this is where it becomes clear that intelligence has left the building
Alright, so, so far there has been nothing approaching a coherent argument for the author's claims. He's basically just said a bunch of stuff that's either too vague to dispute, or too generalized to be false. He hasn't defined a single word he has used properly, and he hasn't bothered to offer any reason to believe that his point is correct other than that it doesn't fail miserably when he presents it in the specific way that he has chosen to present it.

But still, he hasn't been dead wrong yet. Hey, maybe i'm just not reading the whole argument. Maybe in the bits just before or just after this, everything is explained and made crystal clear - everything is defined, and all the leaps in logic are rationally explained. It's unlikely, but it's possible, so at this stage, i cannot say that the author has his head up his ass.

Until now.

We come at last to the point where the author, after having - at least in his mind - made his case... and after having spent some time in self-serving ego-stroking by suggesting that most people just won't be able to "grok" what he's already figured out (but is clearly utterly unable to convey convincingly) - those poor, sad, deluded people... the author then decides to take his "conclusions" and use them to make some new points about the nature of the universe.

And, here's where it all starts to go to pot.

The argument goes that since "god" is "life", that somehow everything is connected and/or one. i don't get it, and it's not explained, so let's not worry about such details - after all, obviously the author didn't either. However, from this idea, the author somehow comes to the... bizarre... conclusion that we would stop raping the Earth and hurting each other because, after all, we're all one and the same, so hurting others is just hurting ourselves, and "self-preservation would kick in".

Occasionally i am presented with an argument that's so wacky, so absurd, so incoherent, and so unbelievably freaking stupid, that i don't even know where to begin analyzing it systematically. The above conclusion is a prime example of that. i cannot even fathom how it could possibly sound plausible to anyone that has stopped to think even for just a moment about how the universe around us works. Seriously, can you think of anytime, anywhere in the entire known history of the natural universe, that any form of life has thrived by not destroying or attempting to destroy everything around it? That is completely and utterly contradictory to the foundational ideas of evolution and natural selection, and to the fact that the human societies that thrive today are those descended from the most successful conquerors.

Even on a metaphorical level it's dumb as all hell. i have callouses on my fingertips that make my fingers stronger so that i am a better guitar player. Do you think they got there by me "loving" them into existence? Of course not - i abused the hell out of my fingers practicing when i was a beginner! It was because of the abuse that i put my fingers through that they toughened up, making my fingers better adapted to the tasks i used them for. Same idea with my dress shoes - when i first got them i could barely wear them for a couple of hours before they cut a pretty decent slice into the backs of my heels. But after wearing them again and again, getting cut over and over, and healing stronger each time, now i can wear them with no problems.

Life does not thrive by sitting around, hugging itself and singing "What a wonderful world". It thrives by struggle, suffering and even death... and finding ways to overcome them all.

Because that is true, the conclusion must be wrong. And because the conclusion is based directly on the idea that all life is some unified "one", that too must be wrong. And because that idea is one of the fundamental postulates of this author's... "point"... the "point" has no real leg to stand on.

In short... the whole piece is not just so vague as to be neither right nor wrong... it's plain wrong. The only possible saving grace, i suppose, might be by claiming that "life" and "Life" are two different things. But... where on Earth would you go from there?

Conclusion
i don't know whether any god exists or not, and if one does, what form it might take. i don't know whether it might simply be some kind of intangible non-physical binding force that (holds the universe together with a light side and dark side... no, just kidding) links every "thing" in the universe worth linking, or whether it is a pissed-off old Jewish guy with an itchy smiting finger. All of these things are beyond my ken.

But i can read. And i can think. And i can analytically and critically interpret the writings and thoughts of others to see whether they stand up to reason. If that text is purporting to be a work of deep thought, it is an embarrassment to the author. But just because an argument (if this text even purports to be one) is badly presented, that does not necessarily make the conclusion false. Still, until someone comes up with a coherent argument... i stand unconvinced.
divinitywolf
i agree with the conclusion Indi posted. I have an open mind and believe anythings possible.
I've heard people say to a christian " You can't prove God exists" and the christian answered " You can prove that he doesn't".
And thats precisely it. I think that no one on this earth can prove or disprove Gods existence and therefore it gives people a choice in their lives. Whether they want to believe or not.
I dont understand why people have problems with other people believing in God as if they cant grasp the concept of something so powerful and good existing. It shouldn't cause a problem, if people dont like it then they dont have to believe in it simple. If they do like it then they can believe in it.
spinout
So god is constantly changing... a process... I once heard a story about an angel that thought god was too mean for just beeing or having pain in this world... The counterline was that pain was needed for having 'fun' or hm not beeing in pain hm like sex... Would you give up sex for a painless life?
cvkien
actually i'm a bit confuse about god's existence. sometime i'll think that god is not exist because for me, god is perfect, a very kind, peace lover or something like that. but what i study and heard is that god teach human how to fight in war and so on. so in here, i was thinking why god doing like this?? and now i'm actually studying human's behavior. and i had my perception that human thinks that something happened was already determine by god because they don't know that actually something or anything happened around us was a consequence from all the action by all the people around us. which means that everything happened to us was a consequence from what we and others people do. so it is not determine by god but by human ourselves.
spinout
Accourding to Neale - God n human souls are not separated. All are one.
Peace can not be without the abcent of war, therefore can a war happen.

If you want to be a pacifist, then someone has to be a warrior. To be a lover someone must be a hater. just as simple as that.

According to the books of Neale the souls had to split into groups - kind of 'god n bad' to make this world work.
loyal
I'm sorry everyone, but i don't get why you're all discussing a book where a guy pretends his hand is writing of its own accord?

Do i need to point out "FAKE"?

Peace.
spinout
The funny thing was that God (fake or not) wrote that this was not entirely God writing But also a part Neale...

But on my behalf the text is correct mathematically, that's why I have read the most of the books. Fake or not, many good things are brought up to daylight - and God (fake or not) kicks but when speaking about capitalism, religions aso.

Well Neale lost a lot of readers when the word communism was introduced from god and how we should do it. Also the concept of marriage was totally smacked in the asphalt.
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