Who is God?

Thank you, Gramps

Thank you!

I have a poem that I would like to post here also.
If this is the wrong thread I'm sorry, but I feel that they compliment each other!

Life’s Pathway

We all have a pathway to tread,
We have people we meet on the way,
Our paths will diverge as progression we make,
And only "we" can choose the way.

Be it the left or the right on the pathway of life.
We have guidance on whom we ask help,
Unknown Friends from the wider sphere
Who on our path, eons before us, have dwelt!

Our future is not known to us now.
It is an adventure we live.
But on our journey we have the gift to help
Others, their troubled lives to well live!

Regrets we all have, but lessons are learnt,
To strengthen our resolve to succeed,
Our lives go on with experience bought,
Through failing and loving and tears.

If you have a faith, I'm sure that it helps,
The option is there for all,
But my dear friends, we all have free will.
And inner strength is there if we call!

Gramps © 07/ 01/ 2010

Thanks for sharing that Gramps

I think God needs a kick up the backside. He reckons he's omnipotent and all loving then stands back and watches the carnage he put in motion. I can take the freewill aspect if we're talking war or man's inhumanity to man but I haven't chosen to be ill and it's not the fault of anyone else.

When/If I'm allowed into Heaven I'm going to tell him exactly what I think of his laissez faire attitude to his creation.

Am I angry with God? Too right I am. I figure he's big enough to be shouted at. If he truly loves me he understands and if he doesn't...well that's tough.

I think you under estimate people when you say, "people in general cannot accept a more ethereal being that is not bound by time or space". I would think most people realise that God, if He exists, is the spirit of life in all living things. No one really believes in the old man with a beard on a golden throne anymore, do they?

My version of faith that we take on a little of the Spirit of God when we are born, and when we die we go back to the whole - God.

I think some Greek philosopher first came up with this notion, but I can't remember which one.

vampirequeen why do you think God is all-powerful? He's not. He gave man free will. You can't blame God for all the bad things that happen. A lot of them are man created.

Though I don't understand why He can't control the natural elements of His world better.

Something I think He's not a loving God.

He would protect children better. Or are we supposed to be doing that?

Who knows. I sure as hell don't.

Thanks for your post, gramps. I like the idea of a spirit of life running through all things, but I don't think life is sacred. I don't think anything is sacred. Nor do I think that people who have religious faith are more positive than those who don't. I think that faith is irrelevant to one's positivity or negativity.

I find that just being alive and observing life is enough for me. I don't need it to have a 'dimension' that requires faith or religion. It is completely fascinating to me without that, and I love the way science tries to understand more and more of it, and to help people as a result of that curiosity.

I think there are very few clear cut rights and wrongs in life. We just have to do our best to weigh up the pros and cons of each situation that we encounter, using the moral code that we have devised for ourselves and which we are still trying to improve. Such an ethical code depends, of course, on decent civilisation and education and being able to distinguish what is reality from what is not. Not always easy but that's all we can do.

Finally, I don't agree that we have to respect beliefs. We have to respect people. I respect you and your right to hold different views from mine and to say what they are without my taking offence. I trust you will do the same for me.

I think the ancient Greeks had the right idea. Man was just the plaything of the Gods. If they smiled on you then you were OK but if they decided to squat you then you didn't stand a chance.

No, I don't believe you have faith to be positive. Why would you?

have to have. not just have.

My moral code is laid down by only me.

gramps Many thanks. Bags

Hi "Vampy",

You and thousands of others!
I've got an incurable ,disabling condition,which "grabbed" me about six years ago. It is frustrating not being able to do things that I could still do last year!
I can't even walk properly, sometimes only shuffle, using two sticks, and commanding my feet to move. YES, I do complain, but there are plenty of folk jn a worse situation!

Try being more positive about your self! Nobody can carry on life without that inner strength, which we all have!

Try helping out somewhere or somebody. I know - you are thinking,"what does he know about me?" I don't , but I know the feeling

"God" is quite used to being shouted at , by all humanity over the mlllions of years, but then you see, God is being seen as a person!

I have no answer to your protests, sorry -but keep searching for the "truth", and stay POSITIVE!

What makes you think vampirequeen doesn't already help other people out?

Thank you, Gramps. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in any 'god', but I do believe that by doing my best not to affect others badly by the choices I make is the way to live my life. In other words I believe in 'Do as you would be done by'. There will always be terrible things happening in the world and if these terrible happenings are not caused naturally by Nature, then they are likely to be caused by man's greed for money and power. Each to his/her own, as long as no-one is hurt in the process. No harm done.

Gramps, I feel very positive, in spite of being an atheist! And I do try to help other people.

Gramps I think you're judging me unfairly. I don't wallow in self pity and, although I'm pretty much housebound for most of the day, I work (voluntarily)online to help others survive what the world and God throws at them.

Thank you JO4 for sticking up for me.

I like the analogy that God is like an elephant and we are like ants. The ants may know there's something there but it's beyond their comprehension to understand what.

We are very small beings in a very big universe, how can we possibly know.

That's a good analogy.

We are all in or own way searching and struggling to understand what this universe is about and where we stand within it.

My own belief is that I do not know the answers to any of these big questions - and I do not think that anyone else does either - some have a faith, often handed down through their family or community, but that is different from knowledge.

I certainly cannot believe in a loving god who takes a particular interest in us human beings. We are simply a higher more complex form of organism and have developed a degree of control over the world around us. But we are no more important than the viruses that wipe us out when we become ill. The world as we know it is a battle ground between organisms - it really is kill or be killed - not a particularly attractive basis for our world - but that is how it is.

The concept of god as a spirit is simply not comprehensible to me - I do not understand the language.

But.....I do believe in goodness and kindness, in the joy of family; and I stand in awe of much that I see around me and of the particular wondrous thing that is music. I value many of the same things as a religious person, but see it in the context of responses from our brains rather than something from "above" or outside our ourselves.

Sadly much wrong has been perpetrated in the name of religion - not least the terrible burden of "original sin", when most of what troubles us in the world is not manmade or caused by people - it is simply the natural order of things, whether we like it or not. I am saddened by the thousands of years of guilt that a belief in a god has produced, and the suppression of women and poor people.

What an excellent post, Mishap.

Agreed. Excellent, mishap.