I believe in a Higher Power

[PyramidHead]

From The Last Messiah:

Man beholds the earth, and it is breathing like a great lung; whenever it exhales, delightful life swarms from all its pores and reaches out toward the sun, but when it inhales, a moan of rupture passes through the multitude, and corpses whip the ground like bouts of hail.

 

[Underseer]

I have found the real God! It turns out she is a fickle bitch called Mother Nature. She doesn't give a damn. She doesn't listen to the most sincere prayer. She neither curses nor blesses. She has her commandment, just one -- I may not be denied. Both nurturing and cruel, she rules. The oracle of truth if asked in just the right way. As with all oracles (oracles in myth are but models of her) she always gives true answers. And often misleading ones. Lying with the truth is in her very nature.

Do I believe in a higher power? Yes, see above.

Sounds a lot like pantheism.

If the universe is god, then god is an unnecessary element/explanation. Why not just call the universe the universe?

 

[rousseau]

The universe isn't ambivalent, it's supportive.

Only if you know, understand, and obey the rules. Fail to do so and that bitch will slap you down.

Never trust the smile
of a crocodile.

The more rules you know the better. The less rules you know the worse.

 

[rousseau]

I have found the real God! It turns out she is a fickle bitch called Mother Nature. She doesn't give a damn. She doesn't listen to the most sincere prayer. She neither curses nor blesses. She has her commandment, just one -- I may not be denied. Both nurturing and cruel, she rules. The oracle of truth if asked in just the right way. As with all oracles (oracles in myth are but models of her) she always gives true answers. And often misleading ones. Lying with the truth is in her very nature.

Do I believe in a higher power? Yes, see above.

Sounds a lot like pantheism.

If the universe is god, then god is an unnecessary element/explanation. Why not just call the universe the universe?

If the universe is God then we're all God because we're a part of the universe.

Anybody reminded of their stoner days in this thread?

 

[skepticalbip]

Only if you know, understand, and obey the rules. Fail to do so and that bitch will slap you down.

Never trust the smile
of a crocodile.

The more rules you know the better. The less rules you know the worse.

But the problem is that the bitch didn't write those rules down for us. We don't even know how many rules there are. We can only learn the rules by trial and error and, of course, some of the errors we make the bitch thinks is serious enough that the one attempting to determine if something is a rule will be eliminated.

 

[rousseau]

The more rules you know the better. The less rules you know the worse.

But the problem is that the bitch didn't write those rules down for us. We don't even know how many rules there are. We can only learn the rules by trial and error and, of course, some of the errors we make the bitch thinks is serious enough that the one attempting to determine if something is a rule will be eliminated.

She DID write them down! Not only that, but if you follow the right accounts on Twitter there are people and businesses who spend years of time trying to get you to listen to them.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I have found the real God! It turns out she is a fickle bitch called Mother Nature. She doesn't give a damn. She doesn't listen to the most sincere prayer. She neither curses nor blesses. She has her commandment, just one -- I may not be denied. Both nurturing and cruel, she rules. The oracle of truth if asked in just the right way. As with all oracles (oracles in myth are but models of her) she always gives true answers. And often misleading ones. Lying with the truth is in her very nature.

Do I believe in a higher power? Yes, see above.

Sounds a lot like pantheism.

If the universe is god, then god is an unnecessary element/explanation. Why not just call the universe the universe?

Because there's nowhere else you can get laid.

 

[Keith&Co.]

A deist god. Nature's God. More powerful than any other "god." There are no other gods to be before her. Nature personified.

Then why is this thread here?
The forum is Science versus Religions.
Not an attempt to identify a scientific trait of the universe to use as a target for religious behaviors.

I can say 'I accept that Nature exists, and for the most part can kick humanity's ass without hardly trying,' without pretending it's a 'higher power.' It's just something else in or about the universe.

I don't see a need to treat gravity as a higher power. Or humidity. The color 'radio.'

 

[George S]

We have discovered a saint! Mother Teresa.

In the Google+ discussion of the sainthood of her, entitled Mother Teresa was a heartless bitch I replied:


My pagan goddess Mother Nature is a heartless bitch. Both nurturing and cruel she doesn't care about humanity at all. Mother Teresa was a saint of the goddess Mother Nature, accepting -- no, honoring -- the pain and suffering in her pain-filled hospice "care."

 

[OLDMAN]

That would fry your fridge, but your electric stove and clothes dryer would need a 220 volt line.

 

[bilby]

That would fry your fridge, but your electric stove and clothes dryer would need a 220 volt line.

Documentary proof.

Here we see 2 fibre optic Cable TV cables; above them four conductors for the local 415v 3-phase plus common neutral domestic supply (lower power); and above them, the Higher Power - three conductors carrying the 11kV 3-phase local grid.

 

[OLDMAN]

Excellent....

 

[hinduwoman]

Sorry for raining on your parade, but when people turn this into actual theology then it is a problem.

The most savage goddesses in Hinduism --- from the village deities to more important ones --- are exactly of this type and identified with the universe/earth/nature. Result is blind worship, blood sacrifice including human sacrifice, and no need to accept a scientific outlook.

People understand that this is the way universe works and so they created these kind of goddesses.

 

[Will Wiley]

I have found the real God! It turns out she is a fickle bitch called Mother Nature. She doesn't give a damn. She doesn't listen to the most sincere prayer. She neither curses nor blesses. She has her commandment, just one -- I may not be denied. Both nurturing and cruel, she rules. The oracle of truth if asked in just the right way. As with all oracles (oracles in myth are but models of her) she always gives true answers. And often misleading ones. Lying with the truth is in her very nature.

Do I believe in a higher power? Yes, see above.

Sounds a lot like pantheism.

If the universe is god, then god is an unnecessary element/explanation. Why not just call the universe the universe?

The way "new age" people do?

 

[Dutch_labrat]

Basically the argument is that if you define 'higher Power' in such a way that it is a thing that exists you believe in it. Nature exists, the universe exists, things behave in predictable ways, believing that is not really a profound thing.