I got it. You are not a devotee. Also I understand you need a God although that God is absolutely your personal God. This God, I presume, is harmless to any one surrounding you. No one should have any problem with this kind of belief of yours. Your God is not a religious God. Delinking God from religion is not a new phenomenon I guess. I am trying to look for examples. What about Rabindranath? Was he a devotee? He used to pray alone or in groups. He used to write prayer or devotional songs and also used to write music for those. People say that he had his "jeebon debota". That was very personal. Maybe your God is similar to RN's jeebon debota.
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Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 6, 2014, at 4:27 PM, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
".. my question is: Is Dr. Roy a devotee? That God is a spirit does not make much sense as then we have to believe in evil spirits that are practically nonexistent."Mr. Chakraborty, what do you mean by devotee? How do you become a devotee of a spirit? I guess, I am not a devotee. And, yes, we need to believe in the presence of evil-spirit, since it exists. Where there is God or good -spirit, there is bad spirit.It seems like you are stuck in the religious mindset. I am not saying anything from the point of view of any religion. So, please do not go back to what a particular religion says about it or not to understand what I am talking about.Jiten Roy
From: "Subimal Chakrabarty subimal@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2014 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
With due respect I feel like saying that Dr. Jiten Roy is not very sure about the nature of his God. Normally God is an entity having a physical appearance or without any concrete structure or no structure at all. But for most of the believers one thing is common: God can punish and reward. This God believes in virtues and sins although not defined same way by all Gods. That belief makes most of the believers pray to Him or worship Him. I wonder if Dr. Roy's God has that capability.I guess not. Then my question is: Is Dr. Roy a devotee? That God is a spirit does not make much sense as then we have to believe in evil spirits that are practically nonexistent.
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On Dec 6, 2014, at 2:57 AM, sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:I agree with you if for you, meaning of spirit is imagination. There is no limit to what you can imagine like some one talking to you, some one existing every where even after death etc. But for the believers god is not imagination but reality, where we disagree. And you need not stop at the creator but can go on imagining that there is a unending chain of creators who created your creator who created you. As such scientists who say this universe always existed in some form or other, there is no role for a creator as there is no point of creation (not even big bang is the starting point). Since there is no creation, there is no creator !Sanjeev
From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, 6 December 2014 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Sanjeev, not everything can live everywhere; only spiritual entity can live everywhere without existence.As per religion, God is everywhere and with everybody, meaning - God is a spirit.When my parents were alive in Bangladesh, I used to feel bad because – they were so far away from me. They are now gone, but I feel their presence (in spirit) always with me. I talk to them silently, when I feel like. God is one such entity that can exist everywhere with everybody; you can talk to Him silently, whenever you like to. These are all spiritual thoughts.Just like my parents created me and my home, where I grew up, we can extrapolate this thought to the beginning, and assume that there was one such creator, who created the universe, where everything is today. Obviously, these are spiritual thoughts only, but it can give us a closure of the thought. Isn't it better than leaving that thought open?Anyway, religion is a product of human imaginations. So, there is no reason to think that everything in religion will be right. I have no problem with the spiritual part of the religion.Jiten Roy
From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, December 5, 2014 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Jiten, Can any thing live any where without having existence ?If god has only one attribute or characteristic then every individual can claim for him god means XXXX (where XXXX stands for creator, truth, spirit, love, barby doll, some prophet, avtar, saint, big bang, black hole etc. etc. --pick your favourite attribute and put it in place of XXXX as per your liking and ask whether atheist can accept it. Butif you study all the religions, god is not just a single attribute but it is sum total of all supposed attributes of god viz. creator, dispenser of justice, punisher of evil, sustainer of order, capable of bending rules by way of miracles to favour his devotees to answerprayers , sender of messages and prophets and taking birth as avtar to destroy evil,intelligent designer etc. Unless you believe in most of the attributes, you cannot sayyou believe in god.Just believing in spirit, or creator etc. does not make it god in totality. And weatheists do not believe there is any thing in the universe which meet most of thecriteria and supposed attributes. For any thing like this to exist, the universe willhave to violate many laws of nature, which is simply impossible. Nature does notmake exception to its rule no matter how holy the person or entity is.Sanjeev
From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 5 December 2014 7:08 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Yes, Sanjeev, you need to define God first. If I say, my God has no existence, He lives in the spirit, then where the question of existence of God come from? Atheists should not have trouble accepting this God. Isn't it?Jiten Roy
From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2014 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Define god ? Poison by any name will kill.Sanjeev
From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2014 9:00 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Excellent points! I have some issue with atheism; it appears to be incomplete idea. Most atheists think they are atheist because they have rejected God, as defined in the religion. Religionists, obviously, have distorted the concept of God; they made it some kind of human-like character. First thing is to define God, then love or hate it.Jiten Roy
From: "Kamal Das kamalctgu@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2014 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Haven't the Buddhists made Buddha their supreme god? There are Amitava Buddha, the sun god with limitless radiation, Kacchapa Buddha looking like a turtle and representing the sky god, Maitreya Buddha yet to come etc. My atheism sees gods and goddesses everywhere. God, having been derived from Godde, a Persian word meaning leader, leads in every place. Religion, by definition, is something that holds together. Even communism is a religion, but atheism or agnosticism, being glue less, are not.
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On Dec 3, 2014, at 9:13 AM, "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:If Buddhism is considered a religion, surely God is not needed for all religions. But what is this nonsense of what God needs or does not need? The imaginary character needs whatever the believer thinks he needs. To a rational person, there is no such thing as God needing this or that.I find the statement, 'Atheism itself is regarded as a religion. So Subimal Chakrabarty's atheism or my atheism or anybody else's atheism does not mean that we are all clue-less non-sensical people', totally absurd.Let us look at the definition of "religion" in the Oxford Dictionaries. It is, "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." Atheism is probably regarded as a religion only by people, including some Christians, who cannot think beyond religions. The idea that atheists would be 'clueless and nonsensical' without accepting that their rational thoughts are also a religion sounds too ludicrous to me.SuBain===============================================On Tuesday, December 2, 2014 6:26 PM, "ANISUR RAHMAN anisur.rahman1@btinternet.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Jiten Roy is probably forgetting his own religion (if he has any), when he says religion needs God. Have you got a God or more widely, have Hindus got a God? There may be a number of gods and goddesses, but not a single all powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent God, as understood in the monotheistic religion. Buddhism does not believe in gods or goddesses. So to assert that 'religion has no existence without God' is blatantly wrong. Religion is a faith, quite often a blind faith.You can have faith in whatever you like - God or no God. Atheism itself is regarded as a religion. So Subimal Chakrabarty's atheism or my atheism or anybody else's atheism does not mean that we are all clue-less non-sensical people, as Jiten Roy claims. In fact, such egregious claim is itself devoid of sense.- AR
From: "Subimal Chakrabarty subimal@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 2 December 2014, 0:27
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
First thing first. Your account might have been hacked. I tried to contact you but I do not know your telephone number. Check on that first.Now with respect to your query, my short cut answer is that I am talking about the teachings of a religion. You can learn great virtues from a religion. That's why many believers are good human beings.
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 1, 2014, at 6:20 PM, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:Mr. Chakraborty, you cannot partially support a religion; you may partially follow a religion; in fact, most people do that. That does not mean, they have partial support for their religion. Maybe that's what you meant. Even then, you are contradicting yourself.You have said in a previous post that you are an atheist for 45 years, meaning you don't believe in God. You must know - religion have no existence without God. How can you partially support religion without believing in God? You are not making sense here.
God is a metaphysical concept; God does not need religion, religion needs God, meaning one can believe in God without religion, but the reverse logic is not true.Deepak Chopra in a recent article discussed how: Physics needs God, but God does not need physics. The concept of God is the same, whether it is in physics or religion. You can find his article in the following link:Religionists have given a distorted view of God. Enlightened people should not get swayed by such distortion.Jiten Roy
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