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How to Increase Happiness and Reduce Suffering How to Increase Happiness and Reduce Suffering

05-24-2024 , 11:54 AM
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I could continually tell you so much more, but you could reason that, well people can have good luck with things, that's just how it can go. I had a lot of bad luck. I made a lot of bad decisions. I was due for good things to happen. This isn't a confirmation of a God.
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The Bible has different instructions. We are to believe. We are to have faith. We are to have hope. We are to endeavor to live right. We are to pray and pray some more. That's how God can help us. If we do things wrong, then we can get a correction from God. This substantiates the existence of God.
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How to Increase Happiness and Reduce Suffering Quote
05-24-2024 , 05:38 PM
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Originally Posted by FellaGaga-52
I read it. Wondering how old you are (sounds like 50-something?) and if you play poker.

I questioned you that religious stuff is just a narrative in one's head (no god ever actually shows up, nor are any miracles ever caught on cell phone strangely), and you countered with an enormous narrative in your head about what god is doing in your life. All of that, good and bad, can happen with or without a god. And how did you determine which hidden god is doing it? Oh, the one prominent in your culture. Your narrative would be adopted to whatever culture and god you were in.

That's not a path to truth. That's the narrative in your head adopted from the culture. Imaginary friends help children cope, and imaginary gods help believers cope. Believing in such can have utility, power. Prayer, as I mentioned, can have power based solely on its internal "tanking" aspect.

What you've written doesn't move the bar a centimeter as to the reality of the god or the metaphysics of the religion. It is a testimony of how religion can be used -- ANY RELIGION -- to aid a human being.
Christianity is not interested in the worldly truth and reality you subscribe to. Worldly truth can only offer to manage the symptoms of your perishing. Christianity serves life, not death.
How to Increase Happiness and Reduce Suffering Quote
05-26-2024 , 08:00 AM
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Originally Posted by FellaGaga-52
I read it. Wondering how old you are (sounds like 50-something?) and if you play poker.

I questioned you that religious stuff is just a narrative in one's head (no god ever actually shows up, nor are any miracles ever caught on cell phone strangely), and you countered with an enormous narrative in your head about what god is doing in your life. All of that, good and bad, can happen with or without a god. And how did you determine which hidden god is doing it? Oh, the one prominent in your culture. Your narrative would be adopted to whatever culture and god you were in.

That's not a path to truth. That's the narrative in your head adopted from the culture. Imaginary friends help children cope, and imaginary gods help believers cope. Believing in such can have utility, power. Prayer, as I mentioned, can have power based solely on its internal "tanking" aspect.

What you've written doesn't move the bar a centimeter as to the reality of the god or the metaphysics of the religion. It is a testimony of how religion can be used -- ANY RELIGION -- to aid a human being.
64 years old. I play poker, but not near any kind of a professional level.

Did you pray for guidance? Are you trying to make a connection to God?
How to Increase Happiness and Reduce Suffering Quote
05-26-2024 , 05:37 PM
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Originally Posted by Pay The Line
64 years old. I play poker, but not near any kind of a professional level.

Did you pray for guidance? Are you trying to make a connection to God?
We live in The Great Mystery. They didn't resolve that mystery in the superstitious, ignorant, feverishly apocalyptic 1st Century, imo. Gnosis is a cool thing regarding this quandary, canned religion can certainly have some upsides, but is proven as wholly unreliable as literally true.

There are untold gods posited. You have presumed one. That's for you. To each their own as gods are OBVIOUSLY manufactured by humans by the thousands. You get that right? Mankind has created thousands of gods. Say that a dozen times to yourself, because it actually takes hundreds or thousands of reassessments to penetrate hypnotic, presupposed belief.

Science has posited a different type of god. Sometimes religions are posed as of 3 types: fear-based, morality-based, and cosmos-based. I'm in the cosmos-based camp. And a personal god that is nice enough to help me through my difficulties while letting 10,000 children a day starve to death, is not part of my belief system. That is incredibly myopic and egocentric.

So if we say we have a belief system that helps me with trials and tribulations of life, that's one thing. If we say that belief system is therefore the metaphysics of the universe, we are just full of shyt. BECAUSE ALL THE BELIEF SYSTEMS EXIST FOR THIS REASON. Religion can and does aid people, really, for the same reason that imaginary friends help children. It's an internal narrative support system ... NOT an entity out in the world.

The cosmos, and nature, is the god I revere. An anthropomorphized magical being that kills and judges if you don't behave is not part of that worldview.
How to Increase Happiness and Reduce Suffering Quote

      
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