Your Relationship With God

[skypylot]

very compelling thread, excellent, the jury is still out on mine and Gods relaitonship, I believe though..

 

[the_reverend]

I will reply to your question in a short way to avoid offend any members.
I don't have a relationship with god ( with the christian god and other gods) because I don't believe in the existence of a personal creator god.
I have my philosophical and personal reasons for it.

not to stir anything up...but was this entirely necessary? SP's very first line in the very first post of this thread specified "for those who believe in God." i think it's pretty easy to suss out what someone who doesn't believe in God's relationship with God is.

it just strikes me as odd sometimes, particularly on this board where i see it most frequently, when someone starts a thread asking a question SPECIFICALLY of religious and/or spiritual people, there are always a few people who show up to declare their atheism. as though if they don't do so, people won't realize that they're atheists. if someone started a thread asking "why don't you believe in God?", how annoying would it be if people came in there and said "I do believe in God!"? or, hell, if someone started up a thread asking people who drive Mustangs for advice or anecdotes about Mustangs...would anybody feel compelled to go in and post just to say "I drive a Chevy Tahoe, so don't know much about Mustangs"?

i'm not saying you're not entitled to your point of view. it's just as valid as anyone else's. but is this particular thread really the place for it?

 

[SpeedoGuy]

Once you start seeing the same equations popping up in everything from sub-atomic phenomenon to things the size of galaxies, you start to get a really humble feeling that you really don't know squat about why this is all here. That and the constant sense of awe of it all led to a very strong and palpable feeling that there was a Creator behind all of this.

Math and physics did much the same for me. It was the repeated prevalence of the Bell Curve and the Sine Wave in nature that piqued my interest back toward God.

 

[ntstatic]

i do believe in god. I'm a Hindu.
Actually that makes all the difference. in my opinion Hinduism isnt a religion - it is a philosophy of life. There are hardly any restrictions or rules like in other religion. We dont have any commandmemts. At one point it would recommend 'nonviolence' as the way of life but at the same time the 'Avatar' himself ( that is where the word 'Avatar' comes from - the incarnation ) would insist on killing for the good of what is true.

All that said, my relationship with God has become more and more 'Platonic'. Where 15 - 20 years ago i thought him to be Forever Present and overseeing. Now I consider him to be more subtle and passive. I find him to be part of me.

I have come to believe more and more that he is no more concerned in day to day life or happenings of individuals. Nor is he ( if he can be called a 'He' for that matter SHE or IT ) the ever present Judge doing justice. I find him more to be an observer. who has laid down some Laws - let us call them the law of nature, and observes their effect on the vast complex ( for us - not for him - her - it ) universe.

 

[the_reverend]

i think it's interesting and wonder how recent a phenomenon it is that people within religions don't consider their faiths to be "religions." ntstatic refers to his Hinduism as a "philosophy of life." i've heard many fellow Christians say they're not in a religion, they're in a "relationship with Christ/God." i've heard on quite a few occasions people preferring to call Judaism a "tradition" more than a religion. and so many people like to point out how certain Eastern religions like Buddhism or Taoism are really more "philosophies." hell, even I call myself spiritual rather than religious.

i'm curious where this springs from. is it because of the stigma placed on the word "religion"? as though to say you are religious or in a religion is to automatically line yourselves up with every fundamentalist kook. or is it more a case of being on the inside looking out, that everyone else has a strange religion with unfamiliar customs and rituals and rules while your faith is far more personal and invidual, making it seem to you more like a philosophy, a spirituality, a tradition, a relationship?

i don't have any answers, but it's an interesting trend i've noticed since high school that i thought i'd inject into the discussion.

 

[Mem]

He's my third cousin once removed. (via Crucifixion)

 

[ntstatic]

no reverend, i dont think it has to do with any stigma, or any such thing attached to religion, in India, where i live it would be a stigma not to have a faith or a religion, however, i consider the thought to be a kind of an evolution from blind faith to intelligent belief. i do not know if i am going in the right direction.
but it is just my feeling and i think that

"it is better to have a wrong opinion than have no opinion at all"

and no, i dont consider myself spiritual at all. Just trying to live my life in as objective a manner as possible. of course what i consider objective would be relative to my orientation and beliefs.

i think it's interesting and wonder how recent a phenomenon it is that people within religions don't consider their faiths to be "religions." ntstatic refers to his Hinduism as a "philosophy of life." i've heard many fellow Christians say they're not in a religion, they're in a "relationship with Christ/God." i've heard on quite a few occasions people preferring to call Judaism a "tradition" more than a religion. and so many people like to point out how certain Eastern religions like Buddhism or Taoism are really more "philosophies." hell, even I call myself spiritual rather than religious.

i'm curious where this springs from. is it because of the stigma placed on the word "religion"? as though to say you are religious or in a religion is to automatically line yourselves up with every fundamentalist kook. or is it more a case of being on the inside looking out, that everyone else has a strange religion with unfamiliar customs and rituals and rules while your faith is far more personal and invidual, making it seem to you more like a philosophy, a spirituality, a tradition, a relationship?

i don't have any answers, but it's an interesting trend i've noticed since high school that i thought i'd inject into the discussion.

 

[lttlgrllst]

I do believe in God or a higher power as a kind father figure. I don't go to church but I pray anytime I feel the need, kind of like telling a good friend your problems. It comforts me.

 

[What to do?]

I believe in a higher power, but not really as a God, but more of a collected spirit of all...more akin to the Great Spirit in Native American beliefs. My mother is Catholic and my father is Methodist. I was raised Episcopalian. I not consider myself simply spiritual. I follow a lot of Buddhism and Native American spirituality, but would not consider myself to be a part of any organized religion.
I, actually, find the organized religious people to be somewhat offensive as a whole (not all...but as a collective group). They are the ones who are always trying to convert people with what they consider to be a "wrong" belief system simply because it is different. I find people who are not willing to accept and respect that this world is made of many types of people very offensive. Nothing bothers me more than a Christian organization going into a needy country that already has a religion and providing them with basic needs ONLY if they convert to Christianity. That is a pet peeve of mine.