What is God?

[AllieBaba]

"Deity."

BTW, I don't speak for God. Just for the record. We have the Bible for that.

 

[Old Rocks]

"Deity."

BTW, I don't speak for God. Just for the record. We have the Bible for that.

Whose Bible? King James version? With all the errors in it? And what of the far older traditions that were copied to create the Jesus Myth?

 

[AllieBaba]

The King James is the best version.

Just a few errors that I'm aware of.

 

[Kalam]

God is an intelligent entity that exists distinctly from God's creation, the physical universe. Because of this separation and God's non-interference, few if any conclusions can be drawn about the nature of God. As the prime mover, God is the source of everything.

The literal interpretation of "Holy books" leads to convoluted conceptions of a vengeful and jealous god, ruled by petty human emotions, who interferes needlessly in the affairs of a universe that he should have created perfectly (being omniscient) in the first place. This delusion supports my belief that most men worship a false god that was created in their image.

 

[007]

God is love. God is the light. God is the creator. God is the alpha and the omega.

Next question?

 

[Amanda]

It's occurred to me to ask this question, because we often have threads that expect everyone to somehow have the same understanding of God without exploring what it means?

Are God, Yahweh, Shakti and Shiva, Buddha, Higher Power, the Goddess, and Allah the same or different?

What are common to these labels of essence nature or divinity?

What are the unique ways that using our concepts of God can free us from our concepts of God to direct experience of 'that-which-cannot be imagined or described'?

Some say "God is love". If so, isn't love available to all of us--even those of us who say we don't 'believe in God'?

What are your thoughts?

If you call yourself Christian, do you respect all other Christian traditions?

For me it's hard to describe what God is to me. It's easy to say "God is love" and I do, but God is more than that and that's when it gets difficult.

God is in everything and everywhere. I can walk in the woods and see God. I can walk in the mall and God is there too.

I think some people are misguided on God... they think only good, wonderful things are supposed to come from God but God is so much more than that. God gives us lessons and tests. Sometimes things don't seem fair, but that isn't really the problem some people seem to think it is. Things just aren't always fair and the sooner we can come to grips with that the sooner we'll be on the way to something like enlightenment.

I definitely don't see God as some old guy on a throne or think the Bible is supposed to be taken literally. I think to put those kinds of limits on God is... well, limiting. I don't think there's any limit to God. This may sound foolish but I talk to God everyday. Sometimes I don't hear anything back, but sometimes.... sometimes the answer is so direct and immediate that I almost cry at the awesomeness of God's power.

 

[editec]

The King James is the best version.

Just a few errors that I'm aware of.

How the hell would you know if the Bible was translated badly or transcribed incorrectly?

How the hell would ANY of us KNOW? We don't.

I have not a clue what God is or is not.

Neither do any of us.

We all make God in our own image because that's all we're capable of doing with a concept so vast as GOD.

We anthropomophize GOD because we have no other frame of reference to work from.

 

[TofuDog]

So Amanda and editec, no pearly gates? No actual fire in hell with a devil with pitchfork?
The sound you just heard was the 2 of you being put on the rack.

 

[editec]

So Amanda and editec, no pearly gates? No actual fire in hell with a devil with pitchfork?

How the hell would either of us really know?

The sound you just heard was the 2 of you being put on the rack.

Oh sure...depending on what time we're talking about I'd have been burned as a heretic many times in the history of Christendom.

There were at least two movements in christian history which sort of reflect my own view of it, and they were both brutally crushed by the Papacy.

And I SUSPECT that at least SOME of my relatives were probably involved in the Hussite reformation, too.

Free thinkers have never been well recieved by any society in history.

There's a lot of lip service about tolerance of ideas, but when push comes to shove (as it inevitably does) it ain't the size of the DOGMA in the fight, it's the size of fight in the DOGMA that really matters.

I'm one of those heretical christians (post 439 or so heretical, I mean) who is doubtful of the deity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, and every other SUPERNATURAL element in the current Christian DOGMA.

Now that attitude was VERY common among christians before Rome made Christianity the OFFICIAL religion.

I don't need fairy tales or supernatural evidence to believe that there is more going on behind the curtain that any of us can imagine.

Some people NEED supernatural explanations that they can understand, otherwise they cannot believe in GOD.

Others of us don't need any of that tripe to know that something beyond our ability to understand is going on.

 

[Anguille]

And I SUSPECT that at least SOME of my relatives were probably involved in the Hussite reformation, too.

You sure are old.

 

[editec]

And I SUSPECT that at least SOME of my relatives were probably involved in the Hussite reformation, too.

You sure are old.

Some day, perhaps, if you're lucky, you'll be old, too.

 

[YWN666]

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain." - John Lennon

 

[Amanda]

So Amanda and editec, no pearly gates? No actual fire in hell with a devil with pitchfork?
The sound you just heard was the 2 of you being put on the rack.

It's hard for me to put into words what I feel in my heart.

 

[Sky Dancer]

It's occurred to me to ask this question, because we often have threads that expect everyone to somehow have the same understanding of God without exploring what it means?

Are God, Yahweh, Shakti and Shiva, Buddha, Higher Power, the Goddess, and Allah the same or different?

What are common to these labels of essence nature or divinity?

What are the unique ways that using our concepts of God can free us from our concepts of God to direct experience of 'that-which-cannot be imagined or described'?

Some say "God is love". If so, isn't love available to all of us--even those of us who say we don't 'believe in God'?

What are your thoughts?

If you call yourself Christian, do you respect all other Christian traditions?

For me it's hard to describe what God is to me. It's easy to say "God is love" and I do, but God is more than that and that's when it gets difficult.

God is in everything and everywhere. I can walk in the woods and see God. I can walk in the mall and God is there too.

I think some people are misguided on God... they think only good, wonderful things are supposed to come from God but God is so much more than that. God gives us lessons and tests. Sometimes things don't seem fair, but that isn't really the problem some people seem to think it is. Things just aren't always fair and the sooner we can come to grips with that the sooner we'll be on the way to something like enlightenment.

I definitely don't see God as some old guy on a throne or think the Bible is supposed to be taken literally. I think to put those kinds of limits on God is... well, limiting. I don't think there's any limit to God. This may sound foolish but I talk to God everyday. Sometimes I don't hear anything back, but sometimes.... sometimes the answer is so direct and immediate that I almost cry at the awesomeness of God's power.

Direct experience of the essence cannot be imagined or described. That you don't have words for it, is no surprise.

Words are concepts and we are talking about experience beyond the confines of words and concepts.

Of course, the teachings and sacred books of all the great religions of the world point to direct experience, but that is like a finger pointing at the moon. The finger is not the moon.

I don't use the term God much, as it seems to divide rather than include all of us human beings who yearn for union and inseparability with our highest potential.

 

[Sky Dancer]

What are you blathering about now?

I don't judge anyone. But the bible specifically tells us not to water down the Word, and I won't just because some self-satisfied little nitwit tells me I should, to be warm and fuzzy.

Where the hell did you get the rest? As I said, you live in your own world. Where you got the idea I have respect for other Christians only because I have respect for traditions is about as garbled as anything I've seen, and I suspect you must have reading comprehension problems because I said absolutely nothing even remotely like that.

But I suspect it's more a combination of stupidity and lying - the better to mislead.

Honey, you aren't smart enough to pull it off.

You're judging me in this very post. You're inferring that I am stupid and that I lie.

Your own words say so.

 

[Barb]

So Amanda and editec, no pearly gates? No actual fire in hell with a devil with pitchfork?
The sound you just heard was the 2 of you being put on the rack.

The inquisition was crushed, so they'll be ok.

 

[Barb]

It's occurred to me to ask this question, because we often have threads that expect everyone to somehow have the same understanding of God without exploring what it means?

Are God, Yahweh, Shakti and Shiva, Buddha, Higher Power, the Goddess, and Allah the same or different?

What are common to these labels of essence nature or divinity?

What are the unique ways that using our concepts of God can free us from our concepts of God to direct experience of 'that-which-cannot be imagined or described'?

Some say "God is love". If so, isn't love available to all of us--even those of us who say we don't 'believe in God'?

What are your thoughts?

If you call yourself Christian, do you respect all other Christian traditions?

I'm not sure what to call myself, agnostic doesn't seem to fit, but the exclusive use written into the religion I was raised in is a repellant. I like to read about different theologies, and it is interesting to me the similarities many of them share. Still, as I've said before, any effort to define does by its definition, limit, and definitions by humans are limited to what they can comprehend...very few humans who wrote about their comprehension of the divine acknowledged their limits, and competing religions evolved around the damaging idea of "dad likes me (us) best."

So as to my own experience with divinity, in my dreams, once I saw angels who fed me soup made of light from a long handled spoon (I was sick, tired, and woke up better). As for God, I saw him as a giant man (greek, big head, flowing white hair, kind eyes full of laughter) of the religion I was raised in, but he lived on a barge (always found water to be refreshing) with a room up in a tower in the middle of it, with a huge white featherbed (never sleeps, doesn't use it) he let me sleep in when I couldn't take another step. That one was visited twice. That is how I see God.

I think Jung would have something to say about those dreams, and although I gained comfort and strength from them, I certainly wouldn't found a religion around them. I think religions have done some good in the world, but also that the exclusive use clause in the big three have caused more harm and division than good.

I truly believe that each of us possess and are capable of expressing the essence of the divine, and all the fighting over "parental approval" is a man-made barricade against what is different, and unknown.

Given that, those that don't believe in any concept of a higher power are (naturally!) also loved, because that love is universal, and not dependent on the belief of or obedience to dogmatic rules based on the limited understanding of humans.

 

[Sky Dancer]

So Amanda and editec, no pearly gates? No actual fire in hell with a devil with pitchfork?
The sound you just heard was the 2 of you being put on the rack.

The inquisition was crushed, so they'll be ok.

Really? Was it crushed? Sometimes I think the views expressed on forums sound like people WANT a new 'holy war'. The current pope once served as "chief inquisitor" or 'enforcer of the faith' for the RCC.

 

[AllieBaba]

What are you blathering about now?

I don't judge anyone. But the bible specifically tells us not to water down the Word, and I won't just because some self-satisfied little nitwit tells me I should, to be warm and fuzzy.

Where the hell did you get the rest? As I said, you live in your own world. Where you got the idea I have respect for other Christians only because I have respect for traditions is about as garbled as anything I've seen, and I suspect you must have reading comprehension problems because I said absolutely nothing even remotely like that.

But I suspect it's more a combination of stupidity and lying - the better to mislead.

Honey, you aren't smart enough to pull it off.

You're judging me in this very post. You're inferring that I am stupid and that I lie.

Your own words say so.

THat's not judgment, that's an observation.

JUDGMENT would be to say, "People who lie and are stupid are trashy."

I most definitely didn't say that.

BTW, you're a hypocrite as well.

 

[Sky Dancer]

So Amanda and editec, no pearly gates? No actual fire in hell with a devil with pitchfork?
The sound you just heard was the 2 of you being put on the rack.

It's hard for me to put into words what I feel in my heart.

Sometimes, you do a very fine job of that.