I know for myself, I think there is some sort of 'inner guidance' or 'intuition' and some sort of perhaps 'evolutionary force' and just an internal sense of things that may be essentially the 'unconscious mind'. I don't necessarily feel like there is some clear label to this experience.

I know I like the feeling of 'love' and 'acceptance' better than 'rejection' and 'bigotry' whether coming towards me from another or from me towards another.

I don't figure there is a happy family of white people with the mother, father, and Jesus as the son and the rest of us are all his brothers, but he still is the idealized God who created the earth. That is all to foreign to me.

I know I like to meditate and I like being around some songs whether religious or not religious. I like something to aspire to and I value stories as a form of inspiration. I have a hard time conceiving of a God as many religious people do.

With atheists, I know many of the people have experienced what they thought were religious experiences or spiritual experiences when they were religious and now believe there is no God, but do they believe there is no intuition and no value in looking at intuition? Obviously it is a case by case study. Do the atheists in the group reading this have no inner guidance sorts of experiences? No premonitions?

We know cats often will act funny before a storm. We know animals often seem to have awareness of things that go beyond what we would consciously assert they would have. There are studies on such things. There are studies at Harvard around ideas of energy work and of prayer which are being studied further and not necessarily by orthodox religious people.

In fact, the study on prayer that was involved in heart disease of some sort if I remember right, talked about how prayer from all different religions seemed to work the same. There are studies of how the brain shifts over time through meditation and/or through prayer. There are studies of things like how the heart seems to store memories and how yogurt can be influenced by emotions of people not even touching it.

I don't assume this means there is a happy white monogamous or polygamist God overseeing the universe, but I don't think it is as simple as there is nothing. There are things that go beyond simple coincidences of a friend having just what I need when I need it and vice versa. I figure at least maybe some sort of premonition/intuition between people. People talk about 'mother's intuition'. Parents often seem in harmony with their kids moods.

Science can often observe things that it cannot explain. Obviously there are some atheists who want nothing to do with spiritual inquiry or anything that doesn't fit into nothing just as there are religious people who want to look at nothing that doesn't fit into their paradigm.

Obviously this may be a hot topic and people certainly don't all agree or disagree on it. But I would like to hear some thoughts as I work to develop and evolve my own.

Atheists may say there is nothing to those studies and if they have not studied them or looked into them, then that is not really very interesting. Some exMo religious people may say it is all the Bible and there is nothing beyond that. For both situations that to me is essentially just a fundamentalist view, but there are people in the in between.

I think for me personally part of what I am examining is how to live my life and navigate things. I value my 'feelings' and they are not always right, but often they seem to have some value to me. If someone is an atheist and has a truly thoughtful answer on the subject as to how and why they came to that conclusion and how they have integrated something, that is interesting to me. If someone is a religious person and has a more thoughtful answer as to how they came to their conclusion, that too is interesting to me. If it is just an opinion and personality thing then I don't really need to hear it and perhaps others don't either, as we here it repeatedly.

I have explored some Hitchens and Dawkins. I don't know if they write it all off as coincidence or if there is more thought to it. If someone knows something more thoughtful and 'wise' from them, I would be curious and open to hearing that as well.

God = ?

As a personal rule, I don't define God.

We live in a universe that began as a singularity and has become so disorganized and diverse that biological life is possible. Not only biological life, but life that can look back at the universe, ponder it, think about it, learn how it works, and feel a sense of awe while doing those things. Also, this life, made out of the stuff of the universe can care about other forms of biological life and feel compassion, not only for its own species, but for others as well. That's awesome, with or without a God!

I believe in God, but I have no definition for God. In that way I suppose I'm agnostic. God could be an inner consciousness that is completely biological into which humanity has only begun to search. God could be the universal soul Hinduism seems to teach about. God could be the universe, not with a conscious spirit, but just the universe.

I know there is a probability the universe is much more strange and interesting than we now realize. Miracles seem to happen. A lot of things are unexplained. Faith seems to help people. Prayer seems to have some kind of power once in a while. But I can't rule out the fact that humans choose to talk about the one thing that confirms what they believe and ignore the 99 other things that seem to refute the belief. But in some cases,

I think there's a good reason to look into those seeming miracles that happen 1% of the time and figure out why they happen so we can help the other 99% of people who need the same "miracle". Could be faith, could be prayer, could be environment, genetics, or everything combined. I don't think the answer to each "miracle" is "God must exist the way so-and-so says he does."

What I'm glad to know is what God is NOT. And for now, that's enough for me.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2012 07:03PM by kingbenjamin.

For me personally, I don't use the word much. The definition is 100% dependent on the creativity of those that have created their own deities and savior.

I'm convinced that god lives exactly where he/she/it has always been: well established in the imagination/mind of the believer as a control center.

If I were to give a definition for God/spirituality.

I believe that we have evolved as animals.

However, I believe we have developed reason.

I believe that we can choose to go beyond the animal and to be humane.

The choice to choose humanity over animal is god.

wonderer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
> Atheists may say there is nothing to those studies
> and if they have not studied them or looked into
> them, then that is not really very interesting.
...

I wonder what our world's atheists would do, if very highly
advanced beings from some other star system landed on earth:

1. Welcome them as proof that religions have been wrong.

2. Comply with those advanced beings' edicts -- as though
they were gods indeed.

???

As for me and mine -- this couplet works well:


"Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we all burn"

UD

I define God as something that mankind, since ancient times, has used to try and figure out how we got here. They figured that something must have created all of this. But somehow they can't seem to explain who or what created God.

Everything.

Existence itself.

Lost Mystic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Everything.
>
> Existence itself.

Sounds half-way convincing to me.

But then again, I've looked at pantheism and was not much
impressed with what I discerned.

If the suffering, cruelty and falsehoods of life can somehow
be offset by their opposites, then perhaps pantheism has
some validity.

Trouble is -- when opposites are merged, no-thing remains.
That will prove troublesome to most folks.

That is, unless nothing = everything.

Fathom the cause of existence, and you may find that
YOU are everything.

And, if everything = God, then....

Well, you do the math.

UD

I know what it means.

Bliss and horror.

Peace and war.

I and you and the decomposing body under someone's porch are god.

I'm pantheist/atheist.

This is what it is...horrible and wonderful.

Lost Mystic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
> I'm pantheist/atheist.
...

Couldn't that be shortened -- to just say, "I Am" ???

Seems I've heard that sentence spoken somewhere, somewhen.

UD

:)

I am...we are.

Hold on a minute...I want to go fix a sandwhich...

An enlargement of our inner critic and a possibility for dreamy/allegorical/symbolical outlet of our primitive drives. Object of 'love' and comfort for many. It can be used both as evolutionary force and peaceful reconciliation of our own personal fate in life, but then we should either reject fully or at least revolutionize the religions of the bronze-age not just try to evolve them little by little - they are more hindering than promoting progress. Most modern people's religious understanding seems to naturally drift far away from the established religions.

Hence my moniker.

All I can say is Mr. Deity portrays my interpretation of god so accurately it's frightening.

Mmmm.... sacrilicious...



Two patties!

...who?

I define God as some imaginary being just like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy, at least as far as I know. Right now, I can't say that I have the answer to that question. Sometimes, I think God is nonexistent. Other times, I think that if there were a God, he/she's an asshole.

My definition of God(s), I think, can be best summed up by these lines of dialogue from a movie (I can't remember which movie):

A mafia-like gang is about to pull off some kind of heist. one of the guys in that gang is having some doubt and asks the leader:

"How do you know if we can really pull this off?"

To which the leader responds:

"Well, you just gotta have faith..."

"Oh, you mean like in God?"

And here's the punchline:

"God is just like an imaginary friend for grown-ups."

Imagination is a powerful tool. People use it for healing all the time. The placebo effect is well documented. In which case I am not sure imagination is a bad thing at all. One just needs to be clear sometimes on what is imagination and how they use their imagination.

I think the sun stars and planets are gods.

There's no magical fat man in red that will save us from unhappiness with his bag full of toys.

There's no Fairy Godmother that saves us from sadness and grants us wishes to attend the grand ball and dance with the prince.

There's no magical bunny with chocolate and easter eggs.

There's no fat cherub angel that will save us from loneliness via an arrow and love.

There's no Mohammed that moves mountains to himself when otherwise incapacitated.

There's no Jesus who saves us from our sins and helps us return to an imaginary home in the clouds.

There's no God the Father or any other big invisible giant in the sky that listens to our prayers and grants us wishes when sought in humility.

There is no supreme being who has created a carefully structured world with a detailed Plan of Salvation that allows us 1. to gain a body and 2. be tested (note that only 7 million faithful LDS exist on a planet with 7 billion inhabitants meaning only 0.01% are returning to god...sort of negates Plan of Salvation point #2).

Instead, it makes more sense that this world is fairly randomly organized, with random climate, random proliferation of humankind, random placement in the universe, and random outcomes of an individual's experience in this life (wild wealth or born with AIDS).

Just as ice cream tastes good, we feel good when we say there's a life in the hereafter and big, bearded daddy who'll make everything okay. The Aztecs were wrong, the Incas were wrong, the Greeks were wrong, the Romans were wrong, the Afrikaans were wrong, the Navajos were wrong, the Muslims are wrong, the Hindus are wrong, the Catholics are wrong, the Mormons are wrong, etc. and etc. The truth is no one knows, and the likelihood that we got it right during the short time of our existence on this earth is beyond miniscule. There's no JC and no God.

doubleb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

...
>There's no JC and no God.

That leaves yourself and the rest of what "Is" -- however
far and wide it may extend in time and space.

And, in all that is _not_ you, is there anything greater,
better, more advanced, than yourself? Or than your family?
Or than your tribe, clan or nation?

If there are entities more powerful, more evolved than
yourself, might they not at least begin to approach the
super-human status of the very gods you have discarded?

I wonder -- given a few more million years of evolution,
if we ourselves might outstrip the gods of Olympus in
every attribute that made them divine to our ancestors.

UD

What I've been taught about God...

1. He has a plan
2. He has control over everything yet we have free agency... (doublethink?)
3. All good things happen because of him
4. All bad things happen because of him
5. He lets people kill themselves, die, get murdered, etc because he needed them with him and to work for him in heaven.
6. He allows the most horrible things to happen to test their faith and make them stronger.
7. He helps people depending on their obedience to him. The more obedient, the more blessings you get but some really evil people seem to be very blessed.
(There are others)

But what this tells me is that GOD IS AN A$$HOLE!!!! He is selfish! He doesn't care about me or my happiness or give a crap how I feel.
J.m.o

God is a non-existent supernatural entity that is the product of human wishful thinking. Most humans perceive the world as a scary place where danger and evil is a constant lurking threat. The idea of having a magical vapor-wear god watching over them is comforting.

This whole concept goes back many thousands of years to a time when humans understood very little about how the real world functions. Known threats to life and health were met with a belief in imaginary god(s) and that provided them with protection against the otherwise unexplainable dangers.

For example, when a thunderstorm occurred (which included a lot of lightning) the early humans decided that something had to be causing the thunder, so they invented Thor, The God of Thunder. Worshiping Thor was the way that they tried to obtain protection from lightning.

Early humans had many gods. Over time they used science to learn about how the physical world actually works. But the comforting idea of god(s) was so deeply ingrained that they continued that belief into present times.

It is much easier to believe in god than it is to study science and learn how the world/universe actually functions. So god has become an excuse for intellectual laziness.

I find it comforting to pray, meditate or send my thoughts out.
To where? no idea.
To whom? no idea.

Mother Earth comforts me as well. The ether bekons to me.

I do it just because it "settles" me.
I prefer Gods, don't wanna leave anyone out

No reward anticipated or asked for. No punishment to frighten me.
Parallel universes beckon

all unknown.... what an adventure ahead, or not.

gawd is a robust cultural meme.

:-)

I define God the same way I define Santa Claus.

A story that can screw up the holidays if you believe in either one.

Shiva

I have the exact, precise equation for God. Defines god perfectly, if you understand it.

God =√(-n)
Where n is the integer number of gods people have believed in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 06:19PM by Jesus Smith.

Spirituality...the feeling I get when I can help someone out...the joy I feel when I'm with my grandkids...the emotions I feel when my wife tells me she loves me...

An imaginary Jerk?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 06:22PM by quinlansolo.

Maurice Sendak defined god as Emily Dickenson.

That seems about right.

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak

To 'hello': Shiva Shiva Shiva Shambo... :) Love that. I don't know that I would personally define God that way exactly, but I love the Shiva images and much of the general thought processes on Shiva from Hinduism.

I do think it is interesting when one hears Christian views of God and then Eastern views which can be oh so very different. Depending on the Hindu view, I do often find it more liberating as a reference point and the Hindu ideas can be more insightful to me even if I don't really view them in a more literal way like an Orthodox Hindu would. I love the art.

Like you, I'm not a "believer", in the usual sense. Nor am I a belonging member, or orthodox in any way.

To me, Hinduism is a vast metaphor for my own psychology and being. I do any Hindu practice, such as aarti (temple ritual of Shiva's light), shivling puja (ritual of devotion to Shiva lingam), and bhakti (devotion to deity), in this light.

OM namah Shivayah !!!

OM jaya Shakti Ma !!!

OM maha Ganapataye namah

Shiva Shambo !!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 07:10PM by hello.