Your God leaves a funny taste in my mouth...

[Dachshund]

                        In then Name of God
                        by Melissa Cahnmann

I don't care for a bearded God,
a God that throws spit or stones.
You can keep your spilled blood,
you wrestlers and victors. I want
a God who sweats when she dances,
a God who craves dark chocolate, a God
of multitudes, a God who plays H.O.R.S.E..
I want a God that listens, a yoga God
who moves from plank prose to upward
facing dog. I want a vegan God, a God
who eats bacon, I want a God without judgement
a God of patience and knit sweaters, a God
who isn't afraid to change his mind.
God, almighty King of the Universe-
I don't want that chauvinistic bully
to forgive me. I don't care for robes or
loinclothes, velvet or cashmere or
whose God has the better basketball team.
The God that I love is not yours, not mine
not so easily possessed, not a God who owns
property or wears vests full of explosives.
Your God leaves a funny taste in my mouth.
The God who has a rich feast in the foyer
of a finer structure or sings in the sweeter sorrow
of a minor key-all these Gods, the male
and female, the dead and the vision,
keep them, call them whatever you like.
I want a God whose name is all names,
whose enemies are arrogance and war,
whose peace is as present as the purple crocus
and her possible bloom in spring.

[thunter34]

Very nice, and I agree with everything but one thing:

I do like robes...and I LOVE loincloths!

[Queen Tokelove]

Definitely an interesting point of view but it covers what I feel....

[twofires]

Gnostic tradition holds that the god of the Old Testament is called the Demiurge, or Half-god

The Maker, rather than The Creator

He is Chief of the Archons, otherwise Principalities of the Air. He is named Samael, or Yaldabaoth; he is called a mad, blind godling who gets pissed off at his toys and destroys them occasionally. (see ancient hebrew mountain god, h.p. lovecraft's elder gods/ancient ones, and the Church of the Sub Genius for further illucidation)

Throughout the course of this universe's existence the archons have been going about their own genetics experiments, trying to recreate the vision they had beheld of Adam Kadmon, Perfect Man. (see golem)

generally speaking it has resulted in lots of pain and anguish, what with the entrapment of Sparks of Divinity into this material plane with its own set of physical laws. (see Wheel of Life)

The Great Work is to escape from this prison (see the warden)

on the Reality of the Rulers, or "The Hypostasis of the Archons"
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html

on "The Origins of the World"
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html

A whole bunch of 2000 year old writings that were ejected from the Canon by the Council of Nicene, other wise known as the Nag Hammadi Library
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

[Ann]

Ha! Well, the joke is on us - those of us who think "God" is "out there" or "up there" in heaven or where ever. An astute teacher is reputed to have said - "The kingdom of God is within you". If the kingdom is within, so must God be... unless of course "he" is vacationing in Hawaii or somewhere else where the weather is nice.

I just read a news article this morning that really cracked me up. One of the Israeli airlines had a big ceremony in NYC the other day to install a Torah in one of their aircraft, for use by Orthodox Jews en-route between Tel Aviv and NYC. The airline figured people would appreciate being able to read the Torah while in flight and "closer to God".

A person doesn't have to go anywhere to be closer to God... you can run, but you cannot hide.

Ann

[Dachshund]

" I believe that religion, generall speaking, has been a curse to mankind-that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking."

                                   H. L. Mencken

[Ann]

Hal,

I agree with Mencken.

To truly grasp the meaning of the phrase, "the kingdom of god is within you", is to understand that religion is not only unnecessary, but also totally contrary to the concept of the kingdom of god being within. Organised religion is about as anti-god/anti-morality/anti-clear-thinking as you can get.

Ann

[ACinKC]

God is mankind's imaginary friend!
-Bill Maher

[ChrisNCoronado]

Organised religion is about as anti-god/anti-morality/anti-clear-thinking as you can get.

Ann

A BIG amen to that!

-Chris

[thunter34]

A big AMEN to Chris' new avatar!  But I digress...

Here, folks!  My little contributions to this topic:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXZhpduVCjs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4iSwLWIk0Q


(This last one actually banned by the BBC, apparently...)


See you all in the fiery pits!

~Tim

[ChrisNCoronado]

Tim -

I feel baked after watching that second video 

-Chris
(who is now stoned and blames the 'fog' for the hijack of this thread)

[thunter34]

Chris-

Yes, it's trippy, but I really dig what it has to say about how the word 'God' gets tossed around like a brand name to PR some very human agendas.  And I think exposing that attitude  is really what got it banned by the BBC.  They don't like it when their slips are showing.  They used 'inflammatory religious statements' as the foundation for the ban, making the whole thing unbelievably ironic:  they used the same dogmatic practice to silence a song exposing the dogmatic practice.

I think both of the tunes fit quite nicely in the thread.  Hope Dachshund agrees.

~tim

[aupointillimite]

"To you, I'm an athiest... to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."

-Woody Allen

[Boo Radley]

"You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it."

Robert Benchley