Please outline your beliefs

[Thought Riot]

Originally Posted by ---Beany---

What are your beliefs regarding what God is?
What are your beliefs regarding who Jesus was and his relation to god and us?
What are your beliefs regarding other religeons?

1) I have absolutely no idea who or what God is. All I know is that I have this feeling that there's some other, higher force out there. I feel this way more when I'm in nature and less when I'm around people. It's really hard to articulate, but it is really just this sense of awe and wonder and a feeling that accompanies it.

2) I love Jesus's message of Love, Understanding, and Forgiveness. However, I don't really dwell on the afterlife, or whether or not it exists. It's something that we will never know until it's too late. Also, unChristian Christians have been a huge turn off to the Christian religion for me.

3) Organized religion sucks. Personal religion and spirituality are good.

[23]

Originally Posted by ---Beany---

I'm curious as to what the beliefs are of the theists, or even the ideas of religion/spirituality of those who are open minded and have no solid stance on the matter.

What are your beliefs regarding what God is? Dead
What are your beliefs regarding who Jesus was and his relation to god and us? Non existent
What are your beliefs regarding other religeons? Social Control

Basically I'm interested in people's beliefs. Share anything you feel like.... recent revelations perhaps.

It'd be nice to see that I'm not the only one here that believes something.

4chr

[KikoSanchez]

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

I think that the many ideas labelled god are very easy to delineate. But if I want to treat god as more than just a sound-pattern linked by numerous people to numerous concepts, then things become very difficult. For it seems that I cannot define it by the similarities between the concepts conventionally labelled god within cultures and subcultures, since they are so diverse: for example, some say that god created everything, while others say that it did not create anything, but that it is everything. So perhaps the solution, then, is to move away from the internal definitions and toward the external functions. God would then quite quickly appear to many as an active presence that delimits the possible. But here I worry about interpretation problems, as indicated here.

For the reasons expressed, I am hesitant about using the term atheist for myself. Certainly, I do not believe in the Abrahamic deity or Brahman, but to call myself an atheist, when it now comes with so many connotations, and when I may reject god as anything specific but a sound-pattern, I find problematic. To prevent confusion, rather than tell people I am an atheist, I would much rather ask them what they mean when they use the word god, unless it is blatantly obvious, and then evaluate them individually.

You sound sort of like an ignostic (no, I don't mean agnostic).

[redzed]

Originally Posted by ---Beany---

I'm curious as to what the beliefs are of the theists, or even the ideas of religion/spirituality of those who are open minded and have no solid stance on the matter.

What are your beliefs regarding what God is?
What are your beliefs regarding who Jesus was and his relation to god and us?
What are your beliefs regarding other religeons?

Basically I'm interested in people's beliefs. Share anything you feel like.... recent revelations perhaps.

It'd be nice to see that I'm not the only one here that believes something.

I believe there cannot be nothing so there must be something! That something is one thing, as in - totally connected! There cannot be any gaps or 'nothing' to seperate us from each and all. There cannot be nothing, that is an absolute nothingness, therefore the fundamentalist xian image of a righteous and pure God who exists elsewhere, seperate from this sinful dimension, and who created the universe out of nothing cannot be true. How is it possible for fundamentalist xian god to create a universe seperate from him/her self? An ancient philosopher said if horses had gods they would look and act like horses, that seems the way it is. Humans make images/descritions of god/s except we seem to make them in our own image, our imagination.

Therein lies a quandary, how to describe the indescribable? If one was to say God is a spirit, or: God is Spirit what does that mean. Spirit, as in an individual incorporeal being without shape or form(whatever that is), or Spirit as: all being, the aggregate of sentience? None of those things can tell. All descriptions of God are inadequate. One can perhaps describe better what god is not.

God is not seperate from humanity, for what is it that would seperate? There cannot be nothing so it seems all that exists must be connected there cannot be any gaps so whatever god is and, whatever we are, we are all part of the one infinite something that exists everywhere because there cannot be a nowhere or a nothing.

Jesus is another quandary. Who to believe" Am I, along with the disciple Thomas, allowed the proof of checking out the wounds before making my decision? Why when Jesus was accused of blasphemy for saying he was the son of god did he reply: 'your own scriptures say' "You are Gods" 'so how can you kill me for saying I am the son of god'? Does that mean he was affirming that we are Gods?

The etymology of Jesus name interested me so looked it up in a dictionary and apparently one translation is that Jesus means: God is Help. That made sense because of the selfless things I see humans doing to help one another{and thinking of God in an abstract kind of way as the Logos, Word or Reason or as the highest or controlling principle}, it seemed the most pure expression of divinity I have seen, or felt, is the unconditional help humans give each other - especially in times of need.

A lot of my thoughts about god comes down to personal stuff. For example one time I was bushwalking and fell off a small mountain, after bouncing headlong off a couple of ledges I went face first over a cliff. From there I could see all the way to the bottom- roughly a couple hundred metres. Being sure I was going to die, thoughts sped thru my mind and I did as when the nightmares came in childhood and called out "Jesus". Shortly after my head smacked into the cliff face and the next bit's somewhat blurry but I recall coming to, caught by some bushes growing out the side of the mountain, suspended above the remaining 150 metres or so! The very first thought in my mind was a verse repeated three times in the bible: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved". And saved I was, when the selfless emergency service volunteers came in the middle of the night and dragged me up the side of the mountain with a rope!

IMHO We are all one, one reflection of infinite being in an infinite kaleidoscope of being, in infinite dimensions of being - because there cannot be 'nothing' so there must simply be an infinite totally connected something! That infinite being has consciousness and we are fractals of that consciousness. God is what we call the rest of our own greater being.

Cheers

[---Beany---]

^ Nice

Originally Posted by Obbe

God is the oneness of all.

To be fair that doesn't really say anything about what you believe god to be. Is there anything that differentiates your understandings of God and anyone else's understandings of the universe?

Originally Posted by Thought Riot

1) I have absolutely no idea who or what God is. All I know is that I have this feeling that there's some other, higher force out there. I feel this way more when I'm in nature and less when I'm around people. It's really hard to articulate, but it is really just this sense of awe and wonder and a feeling that accompanies it.

There's a story. I can't remember how it goes exactly but it's something about a Father who asks his son where he's been. His son reples that he's been to the forest to spend some time with God. His father says, "oh you don't need to go to the forest to see God. God is everywhere. God is no different in the forest than he is here in your home", to which the son replied "Sure, but in the forest I am different".

I guess it's about being in a peaceful mental state without worldly distractions. The mind has more clarity and can perceive reality more accurately... which gives rise to an experience that can be related to a closer relationship God.

Originally Posted by Thought Riot

2) I love Jesus's message of Love, Understanding, and Forgiveness. However, I don't really dwell on the afterlife, or whether or not it exists. It's something that we will never know until it's too late. Also, unChristian Christians have been a huge turn off to the Christian religion for me.

3) Organized religion sucks. Personal religion and spirituality are good.

Fo sho!

[Man-Erg]

What are your beliefs regarding what God is?

I believe God is the sum of everything which exists. I am a manifestation of God, as is everybody else, the earth, space, energy, etc.

Basically, God to me is just a way of saying "The reason things are the way they are". The chinese concept of "Tao" is very close to my beliefs regarding God.

What are your beliefs regarding who Jesus was and his relation to god and us?

Assuming Jesus existed, I believe he was a very smart man, but due to the falliable nature of humanity, most of his teachings have been corrupted over the ages.

As for him being the son of God? I believe that, but only in the sense that we are all products of the universe, and , in that sense, all children of God.

What are your beliefs regarding other religeons?

Every religion gets some stuff right, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

However, I've always felt that the Eastern religions, most specifically Taoism and Buddhism, to be the most "right" in that they are the easiest to mesh with our current knowledge of the universe.

[ArmsMerchant]

1. Accept everything.
2. Judge nothing.
3. Bless everyone.
4. We are All One.

[Obbe]

Originally Posted by ---Beany---

To be fair that doesn't really say anything about what you believe god to be. Is there anything that differentiates your understandings of God and anyone else's understandings of the universe?

Well, for one, my understanding of God as the oneness of all would not end with 'our universe'. I believe all to be ... well ... all! Infinite, all realities, all world-lines which expand from the common 'being', the origin of all. All things are actually just one, any 'thing' is just a position experiencing a possible arrangement of other positions for the one to expereince.

[Howard.Stern]

1.) No idea really, I'm kinda leaning to some sort of universal consciousness/energy type thing.

2.) I think Jesus was some dude who, whether real or imaginary, has been misunderstood in his teachings of acceptance and forgiveness. As far as I can tell anyway.

3.) I think other religions are just someone else's view of the world/method of controlling people. i.e. Christianity is used by some to explain or comfort, and used by others to keep millions under their control.

[Glasgowsweeman]

I believe in myself.