define god

"I am dissapointed no one can explain their views without reference to the bible. You cant site a fact BY the fact, otherwise what else supports it? Nothing."

Well for one, if it's fact in the first place, it needs not to be proven. I wasn't trying to prove anything. You were making issues about how the Bible condones certain things, and I was merely showing you where it does not.

Besides, the Bible is accepted by faith. That's all one needs to support it.

~Ciao Lipton

Allah is everything and everything is Allah

I'm Islamic and a true believer that Allah is the one true God and Mohummed The Prophet was sent to earth as his messenger...

Alhumdillah...

The "fact" that the earth was flat used to be accepted faithfully as well.

We all have to stand by our beliefs, and if you have reason enough to support yours that is a logical reason to believe, one would suppose.

I read the Bible nearly every day, I find it continued source of knowledge and inspiration.

Having said this I do not go in for organised religion.

Regardless of demonination or faith we can and should all learn from it.

okay kaitlyn...god made everything meaning the earth the whole soloar system! its really confusing yea but he is like the whole sky! hes everywhere! heaven he's next to you..next to me..etc. EVERYWHERE! n god is..he's a soul..spirit..a good spirit! theres no real explination on how he was made..well there probably is..but i would have to find it in the bible..but ne wayz god does have a voice! you probably never heard it because you dont have faith! ppl like christians very strong christians have that type of faith n can actually hear him talking! i even hear him in my thoughts n i know it is him! i cant really explain..i just know it is! no one made god up..he is the one who made everyone n everything! n yes god is everything! is that enough LOGICAL for you? if not..then just keep talkin n i will do same..!

if they happen to be sitting there talking to themselves hearing a voice inside there...head...

there drugs you can take to fix that...

what? you dont need drugs..cuz if you knew it was god then..its just that!

you dont need drugs to fix that? i dont know if you were juss kiddin er whateva? but juss saying..you dont?!...

im kidding...im putting in brackets besides my name take nothing a say seriously

lol. The statement that you offered has NO LOGIC AT ALL. Those are your opinions based upon your faith. Logic has FACT to support it, and you named not ONE FACT in your whole paragraph. I can give tons of LOGICAL reasons for why the church is fu*ked up, including RAPING LITTLE BOYS, however, I think most people that subscribe to the doctrines and human theory of the Church and of God are quite lost, so I will refrain from insult and simply defend myself saying that I have tons of faith and I do believe in God.

He is not your God

Nor is your God mine

However my God loves you regardless and I dont think you are going to hell, simply because I have no proof that hell exists except from the Bible and the priests who screw little boys, I do however see the hell that humans live in every day, and fellow humanity could use the money far more than the vatican to buy another Monet or pay more money to keep the 7 miles of secret library well taken care of so that they dont have to share historical documents with the world.

I would also like to add that CHRISTIAN does not define FAITH and I agree that God has created the universe, etc. so you are attacking the wrong reasons here. I am not faithless, I am a very spiritual person, I am anti-religion, there is a difference.

Shit... now I feel like saying "Cheers" damn it.

Hey Kaitlin....are you married?.......are you looking?

Have you even been to Scotland?

Well I cant get married legally for another 2 years... so that puts a hindrance on things lol.

And I have never been to Scotland, but I find kilts rather sexy ;)

lol... Good point, back to God we go...

I thought it was a more refeshing topic actually.

Maybe we should ask God for their blessing.

lol. I have a boyfriend, 6 or 7 months

God did

lol

I hear the devil does good rates on return fares to Scotland. 'Corse, it's very cheap, about a buck fifty, but you have to chuck your soul in for the bargain too.

So question now is, is Kev worth 82p? (We can debate about the soul bit later.)

lol

Kevin would be with the buck fifty, im sure (especially if there are kilts involved), however there is a slight issue because I sold my soul to the devil already, so I cant make full payment.

When it comes to the devil being the lesser evil of the two, figuratively I think you're right, personally, my Universal outlook is that the devil ceases to exist, so technically I cannot agree, lol

How do you not believe in A higher power??

What does that mean to you technically, that nothing higher than yourself exists?

I only ask because I have a story about this topic, and I will share it after you tell me your reasoning for a higher power not existing. Please share...

I agree with you. The story is this:

My brother has been sober for 4 years, and is an active member of the AA and NA programs.

When he was first getting sober he was atheist.

To do the 12 steps of recovery you have to have a "higher power," not a "God," the difference is that you must have something to rely on that is above yourself that you can rely on for strength in sobriety.

A man asked my brother what his higher power was, considering it wasn’t God. My brother told him that no higher power existed, so he was his own higher power.

The man asked my brother if he really believed that, and being the cocky 25 year old that my brother was at that time, said "of course." The man told my brother to get in his car and let him drive him somewhere.

A couple hours later they were at the beach. The man took my brother for a walk and started talking sobriety to him, and what the AA program stands for, telling him his story, etc. Then the man stopped and sat down on the beach. He said,

"Is there anything you see that has more power than you?"

My brother said no.

"You sure?"

My brother said yes.

The man instructed him to go into the ocean and hold the waves back. He told him not to let one wave crash on the whole shoreline, and then to come back when he learned something.

My brother went out into the cold water of the OR coast and tried with all his might to hold all the waves back from hitting the shore, but of course he couldn’t.

The man signaled for my brother to come back to shore and talk to him, so he did.

"Are you more powerful than those waves?" he asked.

My brother frustratingly shrugged.

"We have a couple options, you can go back out there and kill yourself trying to prove that natures forces are not a higher power than yourself, or you can accept that the ocean is more powerful than you, and we can go home."

My brother actually went back in the ocean and tried one more time, but ended up going back to the man and telling him that he was right.

"Whether you decide to call what you just experienced "God" or not is up to you, but how powerless you feel against the ocean is how powerless I feel against life without God by my side."

This is a true story, and I don’t know how high my brother was when he had to go out into the ocean the second time to learn he had no control over the world around him, but he could just be a slow learner I suppose.

Like the man who earlier said that God was his slippers, everyone must come up with their own definition.

Whether consistency represents God, the ocean, a being that you can never see, or a book that preaches of fire and brimstone, it is for every one to decide for themselves what constitutes “God.”

What I do know is that God is represented by everything out of my control, which is everything and everyone around me, as I have no control over people, places, or things, and that God shows himself every day. Then again "God" is only the word I have chosen to use for those things in life that are unexplained and that I have no power over, so maybe it is just divine order of other things, Aliens, the stars, robots, who knows, but my rationalization for reality is my own, and no one else’s.

Possibilities are endless, and to me it is sad that doctrine puts up boundaries for peoples spirituality and philosophical comprehension of the reality that surrounds them.

“God” is just a word, so is “Jesus,” “Buddha,” or “Allah,” yet millions have died, and will continue to die, for these people who do not exist, and I highly doubt any one of these great deities would want us fighting over their names and lying down our blood for their principles, which if in the end are correct, they will pay for them anyway. It is not our job to play God, he will play himself just fine, so taking revenge or declaring any type of war on someone for their religious belief system is taking God's job into your own hands, when you should not be so concerned about others as you are about yourself.

Live a good life of ethics and moral standard, don’t be so concerned with what book you read and worship, or to what being you pray to at night before lying down your head.

People get hung up on the names, the stories of legend, the fiction enmeshed in the facts, but at the end of the day it comes to being the best person you can be and serving humanity and the world, not about serving a “God.”

For Gods work is the work of goodness, and if you are doing that anyway I don’t really care what you want to call yourself.

Denomination and doctrine take away from the essence of true spirituality, and define a “God” who cannot speak for himself. The only God that anyone hears is their conscience, and everyone has one.

Very long, sorry.

((Always respond to a lengthy post with a short one...))

Interesting.

Oh yeah, my slippers are copyrighted. *winks*

I would also like to add a headline that I ran across on the web:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's Roman Catholic bishops said (02/18/05) that over the last year they received 1,092 new allegations of sexual abuse against at least 756 Catholic priests and deacons.

As well as a quote:

"Mythology is what grownups believe, folklore is what they tell their children, and religion is both."
~ Cedric Whitman

Actually an important thing to consider is that the Devil doesn’t have to go and get recruits to knock on anyone’s door and promote him, the church spreads his word for him. They talk about damnation and the Devil just as much as they preach the goodness of God, yet just like was stated earlier the Devil is at least predictable, God is a mosh between uber loving and compassionate and an evil character who banishes anyone to the depths of hell.

There is also the law of polar opposites to consider, and that is that every good has its evil, every hot has its cold, etc. So what is religion? All of these different religions worship a "God," yet they are so busy fighting other "God's" that they forget entirely about the Devil and evil in the first place. Everyone is fighting the wrong people, it’s just like the people who have gotten on this topic and called me "faithless," when I am in fact nothing of the sort.

People misconstrue "faith" for "Christian," and they are NOT the same thing AT ALL. "God" is a rationalization and a thing for people to grapple towards to cope with life. Religion has instilled fears into human psyches since the dawn of post BC time, yet Christ has never written a word of this down himself, nor has God ever written any books.

I would also like to point out:

DEVIL- LIVED
EVIL- LIVE
GOD- DOG

They're not called man's best friend for nothing.

(Keeping things nice and succint because Im getting way too tired to reply properly, I'll do that tomorrow)

Bert

lol

Ezekiel 26:10 By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.

Ezekiel was a bad mofo. You really should read Ezekiel...

btw: I don't do organised religion, I just read the bible from time to time.

*laughs* true, so so true.

kaitlin the first post u put about how church asks for money and if it really gets to god well i hear you in our church we dont do that i mean u can give voluntarly but its for paying the bills of the church and to make more literature but no one is forced to give no offense to anyone but i heard someone make a joke about how priest always ask for money and stuff so here it goes:

* there was a catholic priest Baptist priest and a Jew priest and they were telling themselves how they "gave" the money to god when it was the catholics turn he said: Well u guys are dumb all i do is gather up the money put in my hands and throw it up in the air what god wants he'll get while its up and what falls back down is for me!*

not that funny but it makes u think i mean god is not gonna reach for it and what would god need the money for i mean come on god is everything the alfa and omega the a-z the beggening and end he makes everything he dont need the money he could just make what he wanted u know?

just a thought

Wow... I guess they don't teach punctuation in your schools. That was really hard to read.

As far as I'm concerned, there are no Baptist priests. I am Baptist and we don't have priests. My friends don't have priests at their church either (they are Baptist as well). I'm not saying you believe that, I'm just saying, that's why I lost interest in your "joke" after the first line.

I don't understand your question, really.

~Ciao Lipton

Religion is greatly monetary.

Spirituality is generally not.

People are willing to pay for both and make their donations part of their service to the world, but can you really call it service to GOD?

He doesn’t get any of the pay off.

In the medieval times you used to pay for your sins to be taken away, you would buy slips that would repent you from the Catholic Church.

Did God sign those or what??

I would also like to direct people towards the "Jesus Went to Hell" post. That should be interesting.

Those papers, called, "indulgences," is one of the key factors to trigger the Reformation, lead by Martin Luther.

God gives us all things, so the least that we could do, is give it back to Him, if not just a percent (10%).

~Ciao Lipton

You say "give back to HIM"

Does the Church have a mailing address for God that the rest of us dont know about?

Paying the Church and paying God are two different things. You pay God with service to fellow humanity, you pay the Church to pay out settlements to rape victims.

Money does not make up for sin and it doesnt repent you. You dont get to "indulge" because you have the money to do so, all humans should be held up to the same standard, and the money aspect of the Church and of religion sends very conflicting messages.

Okay...

The Church is where God's people commune, as they are commanded to. Giving money to the church (God's house) is equivalent to giving it to Him. That money goes to building the church out, paying church bills, and may also be used for gifts to people. It is giving money, to help spred His word. God commands that we give 10% unto Him. Now, we can't literally give money to Him. However, we can give things dedicated to Him... Kinda difficult to explain, but I hope you understood.

Okay, this is where people start to twist things.

"Money does not make up for sin and it doesnt repent you. You dont get to "indulge" because you have the money to do so, all humans should be held up to the same standard, and the money aspect of the Church and of religion sends very conflicting messages."

Of course! I never said, nor does the Bible say you can buy salvation. That's what the Reformation was about, and why Luther did what he did.

I said God gives, so why can't we give back to Him? I never said, God gives to us, so we can buy our salvation.

~Ciao Lipton

I understand, I am just pointing out how religion has had to adapt over time to changing ideals and changing times. The conservative sects are dying, hence Opus Dei, while the liberal sides are the only ones who are thriving, for example the ones that are promoting openess (the commerical welcoming gays and other minority groups, for example).

How do we know what God commands?? We dont. The Church does not have any more of a direct connect with God than anyone else.

Religion is going to have to bend to popular belief, otherwise it will cease to exist.

I also didnt say that YOU said any of those things, those are things that are connotated by the Church's action or things implied by the Bible, which is up to interpretation, especially considering that the full original texts are not open for world view.

I am curious why one person said "every 2000 years will" hold trouble for the Christians. I didnt continue the quote because I dont have it directly in front of me, however where did you get the number 2000?

I agree with Ciao. The only thing we now is that he is a being above us all. Defining Him would surpass his Diety.

We dont KNOW that he is above us all, some of us dont even believe in him. YOU cannot define him because he surpasses your view of him as a diety, that may be a possibility, however human psychology can define him as a grasp for answers beyond human control and conception and that we are more secure when we think things have rules that get us through turbulent waters safely, so we made the rules and called them the word of God.

God and Jesus never wrote any books, nor have lectured on their word themselves.

Ok, broadening the spectrum a little, is the God of the Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Shinto etc. etc. the same God followed and loved by all but in different manifestations and guises?