I don't know if it was the "new age movement" or if it's just that now that I'm grown up I'm finding out what many or maybe most religious people really believe, but it seems like the word "God" means so many things to different people, that it almost has no particular meaning at all anymore.

When someone asks me if I believe in God, I really don't know what to say anymore. It's like someone asking me if I love him or her. The word "love" is another word with 2 many definitions.

In a way it would be great to have one world religion that could include all beliefs, but could you call that a religion when in including all beliefs it could actually be said to have no distinct beliefs at all?

A lot of people say they want that. That there is too much fighting and bickering about it all. In a way, I agree, no one should be physically fighting over religion or views of spirituality. But on the other hand, I feel like it's a tragedy that over the course of history there has been so much unrest about it that people are afraid to talk about it at all.

The process of discourse could be so helpful in understanding not only each other's beliefs but our own as well were it not for the intolerance factor kicking in and making people crazy.

I don't feel any need for everyone to believe the same thing. I just wish we could all agree that it's bad to hurt people..whether it's with machine guns or with guilt and shame, or whatever. If we could all just rally under that banner
I'd be happy.
Doug

doug, a lot of people have a closed concept of god. i personally have no affiliation with a particular branch of religious denomination, though i have explored both western and eastern religious philosophical systems. as people born and bred thru religious and cultural indoctrination, we come to identify with the evolving narratives that have been developed linearly thru time and summarized into sets of beliefs upon which we structure our entire personal value system. we carry these around as part of who we are and function out of them, but we also plug into the herd mentality and affiliate ourselves with denominational systems. there is strength in numbers. so it makes sense that when our particular brand of god is attacked, that what is really being attacked is one's own egoic constitution, and all of its constituency. and so when that happens, it is seen as a major threat assault on the very foundation of our being. we react in self-defense and steel ourselves for war. that is, if we identify exclusively with our mind and its processes.

but like the golden calf, we have made god into being someone separate from us, someone outside of us. in narrowing god down to a concept, we place god in a box, and a box has limitations whereas god is infinite, and creating a word or idea to indicate god, only points to a reality beyond that which word can express. so any kind of concept, belief, or mental representation we invest in god, actually limits the ineffable reality behind the word god.

does god get angry when our fortress is breached? does god take it personal? does god take 'my' side? really? how could god take a side, when god as supreme being is reflected in each and every existing person place or thing, as product of god's own limitless being. for god to take sides, would mean that god would be dividing his very essence into parts, and these divisions exist only in the mind, where thought dwells, where all these ideas about separateness arise.

even christ himself says that both heaven and earth shall [not 'will] pass away, so it would seem that for those of us trying to 'get' somewhere or something, all our efforts are in vain. what is beyond all that we 'think' is god? pure being! something that our minds cannot make sense of, cannot conceive, thereby imprisoning god, holding god captive in the finite labyrinth of human thought and emotion.

yes doug, as you say, far too may words to express ONE thing.

ron

Or too many things to express one word. Which ever it was.lol
There are a lot of words that have way too many meanings...and many that have no real meaning at all. Take the word "separate" for instance. Look it up in the dictionary an see if you can find a definition outside it's self that gives it meaning. All you will get is a circle of synonyms that leads straight back to the original word..which, in my mind, proves that the word refers to a bogus reality with no real truth to it.
Doug


P.S. I think that's a really good idea you had Ron, of putting a link to your story in your signature! I think I might do that myself! Sometimes I get confused about what happened to who and some people's stories are so far back that it would take a week to find them.

Doug I think there's Universality in man's spiritual quest.

I appreciate your point. People have different takes on God. And they differ on what a 'Godly' world means. It'd be nice to dig into people's heads and pull out the 'essence' of that goodness and remind them of it before the guns start blasting.

I like the different religions. And I'm glad that right now, in the world, there's relative peace in regards to religious war and turmoil. Well, except maybe Buddhism in Tibet and Faulung Gong in China.

I know a girl I went to school with who used to visit churches and temples of all denominations nearly weekly. She just was curious about how different people worshipped and was a very informed and balanced character. Wish there were more like her.

See Unitarian Universalism.

Sans Logos,

Very nicely said.

Blueshift,

You used the word reality, for me I'm not even sure the reality I am comprehending is actual reality. (Don't believe anything I hear, and half of what I see).


Sans Logos,

Too much good stuff. (and I mean it in a good way.)


VL, I personally don't do organized religion, but if I were to name my spirituality, I think Unitarian Universalism, would be spot on.


Personally, right at this moment I think I'm leaning toward Higher Power. For me, two words with no conflict. Absolute...pure...perfection.

A rose by any other name, Does it not smell as sweet? (Shakespeare).

For me the secret doesn't lie in the definition. The secret lies in the seeking of balance and neutrality in my life. When I force, or resist, bad things happen.

When I balance, (the neutral), it is easier to react sanely, when the road of life gets rough.



It's better to shoot for the stars and miss, than aim at the gutter and hit it.

Watching.. waiting...

island

I like hitting the gutter every once in a while though ;).
Doug

Doug,
I think that each and everyone of us has to come terms with what God means to them. To develop a relationship with him that is meaningful to us.
Your relationship is between you and him. And nobody else.
I have my beliefs and you have yours.
Let's live and let live.

mike