Tyrant God

Originally Posted by BurningBush

When people lose in significant ways in life, they might perceive that they no longer fit into the puzzle or that the way they perceived that they fit is suddenly gone. That is real loss and it can be soul-ripping. It's not a lack of everyday happiness that makes God a tyrant; it's the existence of soul-ripping losses that makes him a tyrant.

They might well perceive that they no longer fit into the puzzle but what they don't perceive is that they are the puzzle. We don't need to fit into the puzzle, we can carve out our own little niche in the Universe and we don't have to align with anyone or anything other than ourselves. It's not your place in the puzzle that has been taken away, what you're being shown is that it's your perception of you having to fit into a puzzle that needs to be dropped. If fitting into a puzzle doesn't serve you then drop it.

The lack of everyday happiness doesn't make God a tyrant nor does the existence of Soul-ripping losses. God isn't a tyrant, the 'tyrant' is your perceptions of God and not the way God is. If it is a loss then that's an indication of how much importance you placed on the perception you needed to fit into the puzzle. God isn't being a tyrant, he's trying to tell you something. Stop figuring out how you fit into the puzzle because there is no puzzle, you are not the question looking for the answer, you are the answer looking for the question.

[BurningBush]

Originally Posted by RyanWind

The topic has meandered some. Some other poster actually brought up the Abraham from the old testament on page 10. I think that post asked the question if the actions of the God of the old testament presented a concept of god as a tyrant. But the original post was about how god gave us desires then never let them be fulfilled and how that made god a tyrant. The posts about the laws of attraction, which is the belief that we somehow control our good or bad futures according to what we chose to think about, was putting out the idea that if you don't get what you want, you need to fix what your are thinking.

Variations of the philosophy of positive thinking have been around for hundreds of years. The scientology book Dianetics from the 50's was about the subject. There also have been various popular "guru's" who tout the philosophy as well. The problem I have with the idea is it is commonly taken to extremes of belief. Taken to the extreme, the teaching is everything that happens to us, even illnesses, is caused by what we think. I think this is absurd. We are not gods. We don't make the sun or the rain and we certainly don't make somebody else give us the flu because we are not thinking right. Eat sugar you get cavities. Don't matter what you are thinking about. There is a lot more to life than what we think about.

But while the extreme's of the philosophy are far fetched, it is true our programming has a large effect on our experience and actions. What we think does have an effect on our lives and re-programming negative and self destructive habitual thinking into positive thinking can change our lives. My posts are from a Zen perspective and so to a Zen Buddhist, transcending all of your thoughts is the answer. The philosopher Krishnamurti talked about how one person may be happy all the time due to being conditioned to think in optimistic positive ways and another person may be depressed and angry all the time because of being programmed to think in pessimistic selfish and negative ways. But his point was both people were not free. Both were just a product of their conditioning and both had to find a way out. He taught good or bad, a conditioned mind was not free and would cause problems in the world.

There is no doubt that thought is a tyrant and does not give up control easily. But for me that's the spiritual path. To seek truth and peace, within and without.

What a completely reasonable post. Good point about optimism also being potentially programmed.

[Amilius777]

I want to respond to what people said to my earlier post.

A lot of prophets of God who were able to enter into a higher state of consciousness, a Unitive awareness don't always stay in that mind-set.

It is too difficult for a soul to always be in that Consciousness 24/7. The Times, your personality, circumstances, stage in history all plays a part.

Was the land of Canaan really that bad? Probably. But did Moses have to kill the children? Well in those days there was no therapy and there was no rehabilitation. Those children or souls would have grown up with some darker tendencies or wouldve had a difficult time living in such a harsh and awful world. I guess Moses used his best judgment and it was a lower stage of human civilization. Wiping out the whole tribe sounds awful to us but it was probably the only method in those times.

Remember for every horrible thing you read about the Israelites there is something just as bad or worse surrounding the neighboring pagan nations that atheists and skeptics tend to never talk about because their agenda is to smear the Supreme Being as a wrathful awful concept and the Bible as a fairy tale.

But like I said, Moses was a leader of thousands of people without a home and they were a war-like class and he had to deal with faithless people, skeptics, cynics, and harsh and rough conditions of living and surviving. He obviously had some really bad days and he couldn't have always been centered in Christ Consciousness all the time while he lived on earth. But Moses was chosen because among all the souls at that time he was the only one who was opened to a Psychic-awareness and connection to the Divine in such a rigid and dangerous Age.

You have to remember that even your favorite Saints had some weird things to say where you kinda think to yourself, "Why the hell would they think or believe that?!" Because remember we are both eternal souls AND of our time, family, circumstances, and even karma. They like all of us have bad days and experiences. They sometimes fall back into a lower awareness and go back to their prejudices, angers, and doubts.

Sister Faustina saw the Divine Mercy, Sacred Heart of Christ. But she was very adamant about sinners repenting. In fact all those saints are obsessed with repentance and sin and the body being immoral. That's not coming from Christ, that's coming from their religion and personal beliefs. Those are not higher truths. They are "debatable" beliefs.

Even Jesus called a woman a dog! She asked for help but because she was not Jewish he said- "Don't give what is holy unto dogs!" She then got upset and said, "Even the dogs receive the crumbs". He then apologizes and helps her. That superior "chauvinistic" patriarchal attitude of the Jewish People had an influence on Jesus' life. He was raised in that world and it rubbed off on him. Just like sometimes we have a racist father or a bigotted grandmother can rub off on you in life and when you are at a bad spot or a bad day sometimes you open your mouth and say something prejudice or stupid or whatever garbage comes out of your mouth. Jesus lived in Christ Consciousness in his whole life but there were times where he wasn't because he was a man like us,.