Religions > Atheism > "I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry at God."
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"V" |
| Date: |
09 Apr 2006 08:33:46 AM |
| Object: |
"I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry at God." |
(...) writes:
"I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry
at God."
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
V writes::
Ego based humans always look for an enemy to blame things on. It is
humans nature to be deluded. Going back to the earliest humans, man has
always looked for an 'enemy to blame' for lack of rain, too much rain,
pestilence, disease and all the rest of his 'supposed' ills. Sometimes
there is someone to blame for certain problems, which is usually US.
Other times it is just how things are and no one is to blame. When you
stop looking for an enemy to blame your problems on you have made a big
breakthrough with finding acceptance and peace. It is always good to
remember that all problems are created in the mind...man's mind. As
well that all of man's problems are 'individual ones' and are not the
problems of anything other than 'individual' man's.
When a forest fire occurs from natural means and burns a mans home or
kills him it may be 'bad' for him. But nature has bigger goals in mind
than pleasing the self centered wishes of puny man. The forest fire
serves other purposes of regeneration within natures plans and not mans
demands. When it floods, nature is just reclaiming what is hers. But
man decided he 'owns' nature and does not wish to give it up...greed,
attachment and delusion. Again, nature has bigger plans than mans when
it floods and replenishes nutrients and keeps the balance in check with
its work. It is good to remember that nature does not bow to man and in
the end all men will bow to nature.
But what else can you expect from an ego based, delusional human that
thinks the world revolves around them? One that thinks even nature and
God must serve them, each of them as an individual, above everyone and
everything else? This is why Buddhism stresses the idea of no self, a
concept that helps cut through these delusions. It is an important
concept in itself, one that is too long to go into here, so study it up
on your own if you wish to lose the delusion and think clearer. But
Buddhist are not out of the water by any means. Much delusion in that
tradition as well. Instead of God to blame, they dump it on karma...man
has always looked for an enemy to blame his woes on.
In Buddhist practice they distinguish the three unwholesome roots as
the roots that cause suffering within man. They are: DELUSION, GREED
and HATE. Out of these three, delusion is the foundational root, for
without seeing delusions for what they are, you cannot distinguish the
other two unwholesome roots of greed and hate. But this is only
restating the eightfold path of right actions, right thoughts, right
view, right intentions, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness and right concentration. Within the sickness of s
delusional mind many spiritual practitioners get stuck in the place of
trying to be God. They think they know better than God. they think they
rule nature and know better than nature. As such they demand their
prayers must be answered in full or their ego gets hurt. Deliver the
goods God ... or I will not worship you.
In the 12 and 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous it tells us we mistakenly
think God is Santa Claus and must come through with our demands, just
as we did as greedy children making up a long, impossible list for
Santa to fill. Can you imagine if everyone's prayers were answered
according to our self centered and conflicting demands? Everyone would
be billionaires, some would sprout wings and fly or grow gills and live
underwater and no one would grow old. Death...no one would ever
die...except ones "enemies" that the misguided might prayer for to die.
This is not how the world and spiritual laws work. In the bible it
reminds us that God's way is not man's way, and we can all be very
grateful for that, as we can see what has happened when demigods take
power on earth.
Many women say they can't understand men, just as many men say they
can't understand women. Well, to further distill this we can say that
God's way / Higher Power's Way / Nature's Way is not man's way as well
as man's way is not woman's way. Every creature has it's way and when
you can come to peace with this you will have an easier time of it. To
start on your peace journey look for insight into the other creatures
suffering and problems. This technique comes from my Buddhist practice.
This is easier to do with men or women than with God. But it can still
be done non the same with your higher power, as I mentioned above with
the impossibility of satisfying all the demands of a selfish and
conflicting world.
The 12 and 12 of AA also reminds us that believing in God or a Higher
Power requires "reliance and not defiance." Once we have this reliance
and lose the defiance we can develop "faith that works under all
conditions" and we come to realize that "our whole trouble had been a
misuse of willpower. We tried to bombard our problems with it instead
of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's or our Higher
Power's intention for us." There never is a good time for most of us to
die, yet we all come under natural law and must die. so making
egocentric demands on God to bypass natural law to be immortal for us
or our loved ones is not realistic. My earlier post called "The
Definition of a Miracle is the Suspension of Natural Law" discussed
this issue.
Change is internal
It seems that many of us get stuck with looking for hope of change
someplace else other than within us. All change is ultimately internal
in nature, but we have hopes that someone else will do it for us,
rather than we doing it ourselves. Many religious practitioners feel
that any good change in their lives will come from the outside -- as a
gift from God / gods without much effort from ones own self to
change...all they have to do is to pray 'hard' enough - again
delusional thinking. There is nothing wrong with asking humbly in
prayer or meditation, but there is something wrong with delusional
prayer...especially when you think you are the God and know better than
the God or Nature. Whenever I pray I always end it with AA's Step 11 -
"Praying only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it
out." I take it out of my hands and turn it over to God. Developing
gratitude is very helpful with recovery work.
Now, some people talk of enlightenment or miracles happening, but even
these areas of great change still must be ultimately rooted inside the
person, as no one can beat them over the head with them and force the
change upon the individual. One thing to be mindful of is that once we
do change life will still not be perfect. Perfection is again ego based
as it is the nature of humans to not be perfect. As the old Buddhist
saying goes: Before enlightenment you chop wood and carry water ~ After
enlightenment you chop wood and carry water. So, develop all the
positive changes you can in your life, but be sure to look at such
changes in proportion and not as some magic bullet to nirvana. True
happiness and serenity is composed of many qualities and not just one.
The first step in finding peace with these subjects is to cut through
the delusion.
Whether you believe in God or not, delusion will undermine either path
you take as is shown I the quote I include above from (...). Developing
a good vipassana practice of seeing things clearly in terms of
impermanence, suffering and non-self is very important Seeing things
for what they are helps prevent further uprising of new passions from
ignorance. Once the new flow of delusion has been lifted, you start the
process of 'awakening.' You awaken to a whole new life.
A quote on finding peace from Thich Nhat Hanh
"There is no way to peace, peace is the way. This means that we can
realize peace right here in the present moment with our look, our
smile, our words and our actions. Peace work in not a means, each step
we take should be peace. Every step we take should be joy. Every step
we take should be happiness. Are you massaging Mother Earth every time
your foot touches her? Are you planting seeds of joy and peace?
Enlightenment, peace and joy will not be granted by someone else. The
well is within us and if we dig deeply in the present moment the water
will spring forth. If we are determined, we can do it. We don't need
the future. We can smile, breath fully and relax Everything we want is
here in the present moment. Peace is every step. Shall we continue our
journey?"
Take Care,
V (Male)
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive
spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write:
vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not
the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
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| User: "kathryn" |
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| Title: Re: "I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry at God." |
09 Apr 2006 12:41:31 PM |
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"V" <vfr44@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1144589626.608383.11640@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
(...) writes:
"I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry
at God."
because you use the internet! Stop it!
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| User: "Robibnikoff" |
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| Title: Re: "I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry at God." |
10 Apr 2006 02:21:15 PM |
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"V" <vfr44@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1144589626.608383.11640@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
(...) writes:
"I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry
at God."
Sorry, your stupidity is not my problem.
--
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
Atheist ***** Extraordinaire
#1557
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| User: "Chris Johnson" |
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| Title: Re: "I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry at God." |
09 Apr 2006 10:09:46 AM |
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V wrote:
(...) writes:
"I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry
at God."
***** and stop posting offtopic nonsense to alt.atheism.
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