A Quote by Mason Cooley
People invent gods to explain their suffering.
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All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution...Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.
We shouldn't even need the word 'atheism'. If people didn't invent ridiculous imaginary gods, rational people wouldn't have to deny them.
Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-
where are the gods the gods hate us the gods have run away the gods have hidden in holes the gods are dead of the plague they rot and stink too there never were any gods there’s only death
My first reaction in pastoral care is not to explain. And again, I don't think the primary purpose of the Bible is to explain suffering. I never have, because the actual explanations are often inadequate. I think the primary purpose of Scripture is to say I am all you need in this suffering and I need comfort.
Now this, monks, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; seperation from what is pleasing is suffering... in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.
We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.
It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: "Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!"
If only we were wiser or better people, perhaps the gods would explain to us the mad, unbearable things they do.
Gods? Don't let that impress you. Anyone can be a god if they have enough worshippers. You don't even have to have powers anymore. In my time I've seen theatre gods, gladiator gods, even storyteller gods - you people see gods everywhere. Gives you an excuse for not thinking for yourselves. God is just a word. Like Fury. like demon, Just words people use for things they don't understand. Reverse it and you get dog. It's just as appropriate.
Only humans invent moralizing gods who monitor our behavior.
But how to explain suffering because of a man? It's not explainable. With that kind of suffering, a person feels as if they're in hell, because there is no nobility, no greatness - only misery.
Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don't rock the boat but don't even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick marigolds.
It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.
The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, decre- pitude is suffering, sickness and death are sufferings. To face a man of hatred is suffering, to be separated from a beloved one is suffering, to be vainly struggling to satisfy one's needs is suffering. In fact, life that is not free from desire and passion is always involved with suffering.
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