What Does God Mean to You?

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For me (and this hasn't been preached to me by anyone; it's my own theory, which I think gives it more value), God is the ~97% of our brain that "we don't use". Think of dreams, euphoria and states of mind beyond consciousness.

An example for those that play musical instruments:

A non-word-for-word quote from a movie - "It's not so much that I'm playing the instrument. It's that the Universe is playing the instrument through me."

I'm really keen to know what people think of this.

I was never indoctrinated and I don't particularly think the existence of god is paramount in how anyone treats his fellow man, regardless of the dogma he believes in. At least in my experience, the various rationale I've heard for treating people fairly and following the golden rule is largely irrelevant. The main thing that matters is an honest interest in doing so. People who need a rationale for treating others fairly like believing in heaven, god, karma, etc. aren't doing so out of fairness or kinship.

I also don't believe so-called agnostic people are really being honest with themselves.

I'm an imperfect atheist who tries to treat others fairly in this inherently unfair world. If anything, I feel like I'm at war with god's design in doing so. Not only in how I treat others around me, but how I can never expect to be treated in kind.

I believe in a higher power, I'm just not sure what form this higher power takes. My beliefs are somewhat agnostic in that I believe it can't be proved or disproved whether God exists, but I do believe in spirits and that there is most likely some kind of higher power. And yes, I do pray sometimes. Sometimes to say "thank you" and sometimes to ask for help...

Really?

I don't see a dichotomy between God and Satan. Satan is a lesser being than God, often taking form as man's base intentions or as a personification of the indifference of evil.

If God created everything, and Satan is God's opposite, would not Satan destroy? Yet this isn't what Satan does at all. Instead he merely lives in God's domain, but writes his own rules.

Devils are among us, God or no God.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4205

In my whole opinion, I think Zoroaster was full of cocaine.

Yes, we all know how prevalent cocaine was in that time and place.

GOD is the highest one,he can see , hear, do anything.
He is nothing like his creation,everything that was created by him is not him.
there is no GOD but Him.He's the only one worthy of worship,kings of kings,the first and the last.
we humans cant see Him now, and thats believing in GOD,although you dont see Him you worship Him,He'll be there for you.
all of this was created for a porpuse. He's rich, He doesnt need to be worshiped, it's for the human's own good to worship Him.

I have been trying to read a translation of I Ching and I cannot understand any of it.
Is it anything religious?

mm... the Egyptians were full of it.

Thagomizer - I would add that when I have asked God for the answer or a sign, he usually gives it to me. You are spot on in what you say about God, it must give you a real feeling of security to be able to philosophise things like that. I agree it is a waste of time being angry with Him, since He is beyond time and space. I did a very good course at university on time travel, with the theory that everything in time is defined and set, and no-one can change history by going back in a theoretical time machine (even to kill Hitler - since Hitler happened, even if someone did try and kill him as a baby, they wouldn't have succeeded. "12 Monkeys" was a good film based on that philosophy). Not that I don't believe that we don't have free will, but there are times when I have asked for guidance on what to do next, and I've felt inspiration at the crucial times.

It's a mixture of common sense, trust and faith, and an indication from somewhere that I am on the right track. It's not always the answer I want, but there have been times when things have seemed hopeless, and suddenly something unexpected has happened. E.g. Katrina, and Paris - and I was somehow expecting a third disaster to happen, in our own country - and if anyone of my family remembers the conversation I had at the time of the Paris riots, we were discussing them and I said, "Katrina, and now Paris, wonder if it's our turn next". Then Hemel Hempsted happened. Not that I prayed for it, just perhaps maybe a sign that things can suddenly change in a matter of a couple of minutes. Also I was sure that terrorists would strike on a significant day after 07/07 - I waited for 08/08 etc. Not quite terrorists, but the terrorism issue came to a head in parliament on 9th November - the British 9/11. I also felt that I was about to leave Poland - an old friend that I hadn't heard from in years came back to me in a dream. When he did I spent the summer trying to find him without much success. I had another dream in which he seemed to be walking away from me, and when I followed him desperately, trying not to get him to leave me, he finally turned round and gave me a big sloppy kiss. (Not in that way - this isn't the Mature Forum).

When I had almost given up, that was the cue - it worked, and even though I tried to go back to Poland, I seemed to feel that I no longer belonged there. Thus my faith in God's path for me is retained, even though I don't know what exactly the end result would be. It was round about that time I decided to get confirmed, and though it didn't happen for another two years, the whole thing seemed ...right, happening at the right time. (I was due to get confirmed a year earlier, but my mother and father had a dinner-dance on the same night and they asked me to postpone it. So I did - and appreciated it more when it finally happened than when I'd originally planned it.)

I dreamt a while ago of a brick aeroplane, struggling to leave the ground under someone's pilotage, and then another person - seemingly retired - in fact the friend in the dreams above - taking back over the controls and having it soaring up into the air (although I woke up before we landed, and the last thing I felt was that we couldn't see our destination or the runway - that might come later). After conversations with people I know, the first part is about right...the second, I'm not sure. But it gives me a little faith and hope that I'm thinking the right thing. And it seems the first part had to happen for the second part to be able to take back the controls. The research I've gotta do isn't going to be easy or palatable for a lot of people, but it's going to be necessary.

I'm pretty sure my calling isn't into the church though.

You have to listen to things that people don't normally listen to to hear God. He's there in a lot of things for me, sometimes I can feel Him, sometimes not. He's there when I need him. God is not exclusive to Christians - Jesus is a very wise and holy man and embodied a key tenet of what I believe to be good, and His resurrection is one of the hardest bits of the Christian religion to accept (and I found it didn't happen until it happened for me, I couldn't force myself to accept it until I was really ready to accept it), but God sent him to one particular time and place rather than sending Him to conquer the whole world, which is the mistake of any religion and has little to do with the religion in the first place, more politics or cultural issues. But it helps to have some way of formulating the idea of Him in your mind, therefore Christianity is my way of coming to understand God, though I by no means buy into a lot of the exclusivist literature out there.

god means nothing to me
FACT IS THEIR IS NO GOD NOR SATAN OR HEVAN AND HELL



read my signature

and another thing

evelution is real

God is just a metaphor for all the things in the world universally associated with "good"

Not an actual being or force.

Never said it wasn't.

Crack, like the metaphor idea, but some things are just too - well - unrandom to be ascribe to that opinion. That said, thinking of Him as a person sitting on a cloud is the wrong image.

anarkhos, ill give you another try to argue that no god does not equal no satan... i like to argue against myself but havent on that point yet so i cant help ya hah but that guy dont mean squat to me and other than that, well all i mean in the simplest level is that the notion of god gave life to satan as a being...it can be argued no doubt but like i said, you didnt make the point.

If you guys are interested in further metaphysical journeys I can recommend a very interesting view of God and the universe in a book, or rather a trilogy but the first one is most interesting, called VALIS by Philip K Dick. It was what got me searching anyways.