A lot of religious people say that they 'experience' god. All of us have experienced moments of transcendence, where we have experienced the world selflessly. These experiences are real.

Love is a very similar experience (and Christians often go as far as declaring God to be love). Nobody is experiencing love constantly. But only very few people would say that it is a completely superfluous human experience. Lots of people manipulate others through charades of love, lots of cruelty an even murder is occasioned by love.

Christianity has unfolded to equate god with love, rather than with a horny thunderer (Zeus) or an oriental despot (Allah), or an oriental eternal recurrence of the same (Dalia lama), or assortments of cows, rainbow serpents, divine elephants and so forth.

In my view, this kind of Christian a metaphysics and understanding of the transcendental is the most sympathetic and fruitful kind of religion: it is universally open to all, it is positive, and certainly a great improvement not only a vengeful thunderer but also much better than its absence.


Dante could end his Commedia by saying that indeed Love (god) was so powerful an attrction and so desirable that this force of attraction was able to move even the stars.

      Like a geometer, who sets himself to measure, in radii, the exact circumference of the circle, and who cannot find, by thought, the principle he lacks, so was I, at this new sight: I wished to see how the image fitted the circle, and how it was set in place, but my true wings had not been made for this, if it were not that my mind was struck by lightning, from which its will emerged.

      Power, here, failed the deep imagining: but already my desire and will were rolled, like a wheel that is turned, equally, by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.

What is?

Soren wrote on Dec 29^th, 2011 at 10:38am:


I remember clearly going to youth festivals when i was a child and feeling the spirit of the lord move among us, I can now look back on this and recognise that a group of highly over emotional and confused kids in one place where whipped up into a frenzy then told that this was the spirit of god. I now see this a manipulation and not by mistake. It was meant to entrap us into confessing our sins and repenting to the tune of what we had on us in cash.

Love is personal and seen differently by us all. To me it is not an emotion it is an achievement that is built up over time through trust, commitment and honesty. I love my children but i also love my step daughter just as much, there is no difference in my commitment or feelings in our relationship. So what is love other than yet another over used and abused term to justify ones behaviour.

Soren wrote on Dec 29^th, 2011 at 10:38am:


So how is it that this god can change so much without question or consistency unless god is just a convenient figment of the imagination.

I understand your sense that without love as some kind of all powerful emotion then what is life. I have put the horse before the cart in so much that while you hold on to the need for there to be some over riding force or entity or whatever you like, that is guiding and giving goodness to the world you will not be able to progress in your understanding of human behaviour. It will always depend on some mystical power that justifies the outcome or we would all go mad and turn on each other.

Why do i love my children? is it the responsibility or the community expectation, is it the personal attachment and emotional investment that has been made? or are there more selfish motivations. Is it the reason for living they give ME, the sense of self importance, the control over another's life. You may say these are some cynical comments to make but why then do people behave as they do when a marriage breaks down or they loose a custody battle.

One of the base tenants of sociology is that we do what we do for selfish reasons. This does not have to be so horrible as it sounds. Why did mother Teresa give her life to the slums of Calcutta. Any chance that it made her feel good about herself and give her a sense of self worth. The payback is there in what we do.

So how is it you make some amazing connection between being an Atheist and that having to have some kind of organised ideal or recognition of the god complex. You seem to mis the meaning and the gravity of what that is. I do not conceive of god, know a god, recognise a god and consider the belief of a god to be the most ignorant and ridiculous idea i have ever heard. When you talk of love and the like as being of god i hear a very confuse and lost concept floating in a world of self justification. In my few years of existence i have seen the church sell out on it's core values to improve it's audience. This is the sort of thing that shows me how little value is in what they claim to represent. You say "The concept of God can change because it is a human concept" Well yes i agree it is a human concept and atheism is not a concept but just a word that is used to cover those who do not require the god delusion to justify their existence.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Oct 25^th, 2011 at 5:32am:


If I agree with that I've got to shut up don't I?

I am curious about how you justify your existence and what value you see in it.

Do you have difficulty placing a value on things Soren?

What is the value of:
the unfurling frond?
a new born baby?
a forest waterfall?
a shooting star?

We live in the Universe, the one poem. Do you need a value for that? Do you need to fill the don't knows with false answers?

You poor bugger.

Amadd wrote on Oct 24^th, 2011 at 4:23pm:


If the god does not intervene, then there is no need to believe in him, pray, or any other worship. He aint going to do didly squat, as "his work is done".  So the god proposed in the OP is really just a theory on how the world was built, much like any other scientific theory, and therefore nothing to do with religon.