Zone1 What are Your Deepest Confusions About God?

[BreezeWood]

Two of my hobbies are water coloring painting and gardening, which makes me a creator. As the creator, I do not live inside my watercolors, or inside my garden. I do not depend on either color or garden soil to exist. The painting cannot move itself off the wall then back on again; no plant in my garden can walk out of it, go for a stroll, then return. Their existence is inside the creation; My existence is outside the creation.

Another point about creators and their creations. The creator does not compete with anything within his/her creation. For example, I don’t compete with cucumbers or dahlias; nor do I compete with a painted rock or waterfall.

God’s creation is the universe, and like all other creators, the Creator lives/exists outside His creation. He does not compete with it.

So falls the atheist straw man that those who do not believe in Zeus are atheists, too. No, because, you see, Zeus does not meet the definition of God as a being who lives outside this world.



Catholic Bishop Barron notes that people have deep confusions about God, and perhaps we have not taught about God as well as we should.

the universe is not the byproduct of a single entity rather by a vast assortment of many differing states of existence combined together producing all that has evolved over time.

 

[Arlette]

Actually, Arlette, it is testimony based on a personal experience of God. That love, that goodness is not just for me, it's for everyone. If you believe nothing else about God, believe that. You are loved, we are loved. And, I wish I could love like that.

I also do some gardening. I'm a garden creator like you. Mine needs constant attention for some reason - watering, fertilizer, weeding, pruning etc etc.
This cosmic garden creator you are talking about doesn't seem to do the maintenance a garden requires.

 

[Meriweather]

I also do some gardening. I'm a garden creator like you. Mine needs constant attention for some reason - watering, fertilizer, weeding, pruning etc etc.
This cosmic garden creator you are talking about doesn't seem to do the maintenance a garden requires.

Enter expectations. What are your expectations of your garden(s)? Perhaps you have (had) children? What are/were your expectations of them?

 

[Arlette]

Enter expectations. What are your expectations of your garden(s)? Perhaps you have (had) children? What are/were your expectations of them?

What do I expect from my garden? Nothing. I get out of it exactly what I put into it. If I just sit on my rear and don't do what it takes to keep it flourishing I get nothing. A mess to clean up eventually.

 

[ding]

the universe is not the byproduct of a single entity rather by a vast assortment of many differing states of existence combined together producing all that has evolved over time.

The creation of the universe most certainly is the product of a single entity.

 

[kyzr]

the universe is not the byproduct of a single entity rather by a vast assortment of many differing states of existence combined together producing all that has evolved over time.

Nope. That is not how the Big Bang worked. Research it. Don't just imagine nonsense.
The big bag started when a spec of energy came thru an aperture about the size of an atom, then that energy expanded and cooled forming our universe.

In about 100-trillion years the last atom in our universe will dissolve and the universe will be an empty dark void. Just sayin'.
On the other side of that big bang aperture is God, and time does not exist in his dimension. He may have created other universes. with different parameters, that is called the multiverse.

 

[Meriweather]

What do I expect from my garden? Nothing. I get out of it exactly what I put into it. If I just sit on my rear and don't do what it takes to keep it flourishing I get nothing. A mess to clean up eventually.

I don't expect the dahlias to produce tomatoes. I do expect them to produce dahlias. The raccoons harvest more than a few of the tomatoes, the quail often beat me to the green beans, the squirrels like the peaches. And the skunks....well, I prefer to think of harvesting rose petals to feed to my chinchillas. The point is that we are all in it together. The garden isn't all about me, it's about a lot of things, and any number of other critters, including neighbors who often get most of the cherries during a dry year. It's all good. And I love it all.

However, you seem to have doubts that God cares for, and cares about His creation, that His creation deserves better than it is getting.

 

[Arlette]

I don't expect the dahlias to produce tomatoes. I do expect them to produce dahlias. The raccoons harvest more than a few of the tomatoes, the quail often beat me to the green beans, the squirrels like the peaches. And the skunks....well, I prefer to think of harvesting rose petals to feed to my chinchillas. The point is that we are all in it together. The garden isn't all about me, it's about a lot of things, and any number of other critters, including neighbors who often get most of the cherries during a dry year. It's all good. And I love it all.

However, you seem to have doubts that God cares for, and cares about His creation, that His creation deserves better than it is getting.

If this God wants to be worshipped he has make an appearance.

 

[Arlette]

The creation of the universe most certainly is the product of a single entity.

Everybody knows we hatched from a cosmic egg.

 

[BreezeWood]

The creation of the universe most certainly is the product of a single entity.

jesus taught all are equal -

were your idea the case they would have had to destroy everything else all living beings to take claim for everything in existence made for themself and live forever in lonely solitude ... the desert worships tyranny over justice.

 

[BreezeWood]

In about 100-trillion years the last atom in our universe will dissolve and the universe will be an empty dark void. Just sayin'.

let me guess - you are a desert dweller ... just sayin.

no, bb is a cyclical event - matter in expansion from the initial event is along a finite angle of trajectory that will return all matter at the same time to its origin without changing direction to convert back to energy to reinitiate a new moment of singularity and cosmological explosion.

 

[onefour1]

I've never been confused by the doctrine of the Trinity because I don't believe in it, but upon reading about it I did find it to be confusing that others would believe in it since it is not in the Bible or any revealed scripture that I am aware of. The part that is extremely confusing is when it is taught that the Father and the Son are the same being and yet separate and distinct persons. Apparently this concept was devised in the post apostolic era a good time after the apostles and Christ were no longer leading the church.

 

[zaangalewa]

... the universe is not the byproduct of a single entity ...

Why? ... We are all a byproduct of the single entity "universe". I am universe - you are universe; for example. So why should the universe (or the multiverse) on its own not be a byproduct of another single entity?


Our prayers are with Magdeburg

 

[sparky]

Add to that there are some 3000 religions on this rock who have been the single most obfuscating self serving arrogant sources of confusion

~S~

 

[zaangalewa]

I've never been confused by the doctrine of the Trinity because I don't believe in it, but upon reading about it I did find it to be confusing that others would believe in it since it is not in the Bible or any revealed scripture that I am aware of. The part that is extremely confusing is when it is taught that the Father and the Son are the same being and yet separate and distinct persons. Apparently this concept was devised in the post apostolic era a good time after the apostles and Christ were no longer leading the church.

Says a parrot?

 

[zaangalewa]

Add to that there are some 3000 religions on this rock who have been the single most obfuscating self serving arrogant sources of confusion

~S~

Eh? Do you speak with me? Do you speak with another human being? Do you speak with god? Or do you speak only with your own learned nightmares?

 

[zaangalewa]

I also do some gardening. I'm a garden creator like you. ...

To do gardening not means to be the creator of a life which is able to do gardening.

 

[zaangalewa]

Zeus is just as probable as your God
He is just not as popular now

What's nothing else than stupid nonsense. You can climb Mount Olympus but you can't leave the universe, not even in your thoughts.

 

[zaangalewa]

This question might not fit your focus, but I always wondered why and when Paul's teachings superseded those of Jesus in the Christian religion.

Your problem could it be that Paulus denied Mohammed more than 600 years before Mohammed had been born.

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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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[shockedcanadian]

Two of my hobbies are water coloring painting and gardening, which makes me a creator. As the creator, I do not live inside my watercolors, or inside my garden. I do not depend on either color or garden soil to exist. The painting cannot move itself off the wall then back on again; no plant in my garden can walk out of it, go for a stroll, then return. Their existence is inside the creation; My existence is outside the creation.

Another point about creators and their creations. The creator does not compete with anything within his/her creation. For example, I don’t compete with cucumbers or dahlias; nor do I compete with a painted rock or waterfall.

God’s creation is the universe, and like all other creators, the Creator lives/exists outside His creation. He does not compete with it.

So falls the atheist straw man that those who do not believe in Zeus are atheists, too. No, because, you see, Zeus does not meet the definition of God as a being who lives outside this world.



Catholic Bishop Barron notes that people have deep confusions about God, and perhaps we have not taught about God as well as we should.

I've asked many times "why"?or "why me"? It often doesn't make sense.