David F....I almost agree with you.

You said, regarding the Song of Solomon:

"That is one part of the Bible that I take literally as an erotic love poem."

I would drop the word 'erotic' and replace it with 'pure'.

In that song the man and woman celebrate the beauty and joy of manhood and womanhood in connection with their love for each other.
There is not a hint of 'eroticism' in any other way than the natural expression of love...rather than lust. The words are clear in the way they emphasize love and place the joy of the physical in that context. 'Desire outside of love is Lust' in my view.

The reason the Song of Solomon is used in the NT as an allegory for Christ and the Church is BECAUSE of that purity in the song.

"All night long on my bed, I looked for the one my heart loves" (3:1)

"heart" says it all

Steven, if God exists as Creator of universes then he was 'before the beginning' a spirit ie a lifeforce with no physical properties, but all potential to monitor and control energy.

The more we learn about the physical world the more we realise that the solid is just energy. The Haldron Particle Accelerator is designed to find the particle which carries the energy, for pete's sake!

Physics will probably eventually arrive where the Hindus were 3000 years ago and decide that the universe is just an illusion- and ask questions about awareness and consciousness and how we all create the world around us. God=life=awareness,if he exists at all.

Needless to say God cannot be anything like the gods of the Books-that's just too scary.

Yuyutsu,

So you would not have the various scriptures' descriptions of God valid. The capacity to create a universe or organic life is high-technology, perhaps in our own reach given a few more centuries of scientific understanding. Tou allude some an approximation of the one solution of the Mind-Body debare and also the Greek concept of perfect forms extended to meta-pefection. By what process did you articulate your concept?

Poly,

Without checking, if memory serves, the parts of the Song of Solomon, not delivered in marriage cerimonies is quite deviate. The offerring up of daughters to be raped? As I said, I need to check that one.

O.

Polycarp wrote:

"David F....I almost agree with you.

You said, regarding the Song of Solomon:

"That is one part of the Bible that I take literally as an erotic love poem."

I would drop the word 'erotic' and replace it with 'pure'.

In that song the man and woman celebrate the beauty and joy of manhood and womanhood in connection with their love for each other.
There is not a hint of 'eroticism' in any other way than the natural expression of love...rather than lust. The words are clear in the way they emphasize love and place the joy of the physical in that context. 'Desire outside of love is Lust' in my view."

Dear Polycarp,

In my view a healthy lust is great. I lust for my wife and for other women. I don't do anything about the lust for other women, but I see nothing wrong in having the feeling. There is nothing wrong with eroticism. I would accept your addition but not your subtraction. The Song is a pure erotic love poem.

The red rose breathes of passion,and the white rose breathes of love.
For the red rose is a falcon, and the white rose is a dove.
So let me send you a cream white rose with a flush at its petaled tips
Because even the purest and sweetest of loves has the blush of desire on its lips.

Love is best wrapped in healthy lust.

"So you would not have the various scriptures' descriptions of God valid." - Oliver

I wouldn't go that far, only that scriptures in general do not even touch on God (nor can they). While it may be possible that authors of scriptures had contact with and were guided by beings much more powerful and knowledgeable than us, perhaps even a creator of this universe, as far as I am concerned, the fact that the authors were able to make positive statements about such beings, indicates that they were only referring to some demi-gods (such as what you, Oliver, hope to become one day). This is fine in itself and can even be beneficial, but we must understand that it is still all within the physical realm, neither spiritual nor about God.

It is absolutely impossible to describe God - one can only say what God is not, and it was a remarkable achievement of the early Hebrews to understand that God is not made of silver, or wood or stone, etc. Later on, the Jewish Rambam (1135-1204) attempted with some success to strengthen and purify monotheism by stripping away even further many common material beliefs about "attributes of God" - yet even he did not go all the way and still allowed god to have some basic attributes, such as "existing", "primordial", "master of the universe", "omniscient" and "rewarding".

The closest religious philosophy that I know of to deal with the issue of God while carefully avoiding the pitfall of positive statements, is the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta (you can have a glimpse of it in http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/ad-phil.html ). Having been fortunate to be exposed to it, then based on my own experience I continue to develop my own thoughts and conclusions.

Yuyutsu or anybody else – What is the definition of a god? What qualities makes something a god?